Decorate-A-Cupcake Numbers Game

This is a really fun way to work on one to one correspondence.  We also learned number recognition, new words, TAKE and OFF.  Fine Motor as my daughter participated in the setup of the game by using scissors to cut the cards.  And of course as with most games, taking turns.

I found these foam cupcakes at the dollar section in Target.  At the time I had no idea what I would do with them but bought them anyway.  I stuck them in our craft closet knowing that I would get an idea sooner or later!

We have been working on so many word and letter activities recently that I wanted to try a numbers activity.  Here's how we played our Decorate-A-Cupcake Numbers game:

I used coffee filters since they look like giant cupcake liners and we filled them with beads and pom-pom's.  These would act as the 'sprinkles' for our cupcakes.  I also added one heart bead to each coffee filter as the 'topping' for our cupcakes.

Using some cardstock I hand wrote things like TAKE 1, TAKE 2 or  TAKE 0, all the way up to 5.  I also added some TAKE OFF 1, TAKE OFF 2, etc.  And their is also a card that says, HEART which is the 'topping' for the cupcake.  Their was about 20 cards in all.

The object of the game is to draw a card and do whatever the card tells you.  For example, if it's TAKE 3 you would have your child count out either 3 beads or pom-pom's depending on which they want to use as their 'sprinkles.'  The game continues like this until one of the players has at least 10 'sprinkles' on their cupcake.  Whoever gets to 10 first and has their heart 'topping' wins!

We played a few rounds and each round took about 5 minutes which seemed to not be too long or too short and kept my daughter's attention.

Game set up

shucks, picked up a zero!

adding on 'sprinkles'

counting 'sprinkles'

She had alot of fun as we counted and learned a few new words.  

And..........guess who won!

Other ways to play this game are instead of writing TAKE OFF you could introduce the plus and minus signs so writing, -1 OR +3.  You could also write out the number words instead of just the number.

Materials used:
Foam Cupcakes
Perler beads (but any kind of bead would work)
Pom-pom's
Coffee Filters (or anything to hold the beads)
Cardstock
Scissors
Marker/Pen

And here are how some of our other decorated cupcakes:

using pom-pom's as sprinkles

using perler beads as sprinkles

This game fits perfectly in a quart size ziploc baggie!!