c - decorating cupcakes

Children in reception will be learning to:

Cupcakes:

To decorate:

Method: See the photo at the bottom of the post.

We had a look in our cookbook for a cupcake recipe. I usually Google recipes when we cook or bake but I decided to use a cookbook because it starts with the c sound and was a good opportunity to model reading for a purpose.

As we collected the ingredients that we needed, we talked about the sounds that they began with. Benji helped to do the steps in the recipe. As he cracked the eggs we said c-c-c-crack as he tapped them on the side of the bowl.

We counted the cupcake cases as we put them into the baking tin and as we spooned the mixture in.

After the cakes cooled, we made icing. We used ingredients beginning with c to decorate the cakes e.g. gold coins (cake sprinkles), mini cookies and colourful sprinkles.

We looked at the flashcard to see what the letter c looked like then made the letter c with our spoon as we mixed the food colouring into the icing. We used a spoon to put the icing on top of the cakes, making a c shape as we spread it with the back of the spoon.

We also used the arranged the sprinkles to look like a letter c on some of the cupcakes.

Strengthening Wrists – Mixing the ingredients will strengthen their wrists, ready for when they need to be able to manipulate a pencil.

Pincer Grip – Encourage your child to use their thumb and finger to pick up the cake sprinkles. This skill will be used later on to hold a pencil properly.

Hand-eye Co-ordination – Positioning the sprinkles on the cupcake develops the skills needed for children to be able to use their eyes to guide their hand when forming letters.

If you have a go at this activity and share any photos on social media I would love to see them. Please tag @miniwritersclub and let me know how you get on.

Anna