Hey Cupcake!

While scanning a list of holidays searching for some story time theme ideas (Brownielocks' Holidays) I read that February 24 was National Cupcake Day.  I didn't look carefully enough to note that it was a Canadian holiday only…although my audience didn't care.   After all, who doesn't like cupcakes? I found plenty of songs and rhymes that I could easily adapt to cupcake.  For craft, I did provide a coloring sheet…but the kids were more interested in eating the real cupcakes that I handed out than coloring one.

First, the books we read:

Pinkalicious by Victoria Kann

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

One rainy day, a girl and her mom make cupcakes…pink cupcakes.  When the girl eats one too many, she discovers she has turned pink…which is ok for awhile, because pink is her favorite color.  My story time audience giggled in all the right places and loved the nicknames our pink heroine gave herself, "Pinkerbelle" and "Pinkerella."  Her doctor prescribes a diet of green foods to cure the "pinkititis, which she follows after an encounter with birds and bees in a park.  We had a lively discussion about green foods, and laughed at the twist in the end.   Fun read-aloud.

If You Give a Cat a Cupcake by Laura Joffe Numeroff

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

One lovable cat, a simple cupcake and some sprinkles start a typical chain of events in this Laura Numeroff story.  Cat demands to be taken to the beach. the gym, and rowing in a canoe.  My story time audience laughed at all of the antics and drank up the wonderfully detailed, humor filled illustrations.

Little Mouse and the Big Cupcake by Thomas Taylor

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Sweet book about how difficult it is to share.  When mouse finds an enormous cupcake he is thrilled - until he realizes that he can't carry it home!  One by one he enlists all his friends to try and help him.  Of course, Mouse allows each to take a bit...but then hungry mouse begins to fear that there may not be any left for him...

Maisy Cleans Up by Lucy Cousins

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

With simple large text and simple, colorful large illustrations the reader is introduced to Maisy, an industrious mouse who is cleaning house.  Her friend Charley comes to visit and he helps her clean while waiting for the kitchen floor to dry in order to get to some freshly baked cupcakes.  My story time audience loved this one as well - the adults agreeing that we all need a friend like Charley (he even does windows!) and the kids rejoicing in the friendship and the cupcake reward at the end. 

Glove set for "Five Little Cupcakes" Fingerplay:

Five Little Cupcakes (or Cookies)

Five Little cupcakes with frosting galore

Mother ate one and then there were four

Four little cupcakes, two and two, you see

Father ate one and then there were three.

          Three little cupcakes, but before I knew,

                                         Sister ate one, and then there were two.

                                       Two little cupcakes, yum - yum-yum

                                            Brother ate one, and that left one.

                                         One little cupcake, here I come

                                          I ate it and now there are none! 

All in all a very successful story time.  Kids and adults laughed in all the right places, participated and were engaged in the stories.