Birthday Cake Lesson

This lesson is based on the book, "The Birthday Cake" by Joy Cowley and Illustrated by Jenni Webb. It's a great word work activity for emergent readers! Click more to see how I created this activity.

1. I first created this worksheet that had a picture of a clip art cake and wrote a sentence frame that matched the words in the story. (If you want the worksheet, let me know!) I grabbed some colorful Popsicle sticks from the Dollar Tree to make as the candles. I also used yellow cardstock paper (because it's stronger) for the flame of the candle!

2. I cut out flames (tear shape) and decorated the edges with an orange sharpie maker to create a better looking flame. :)

3. I then wrote my letters on the flames. I matched my color to my popsicle sticks. You don't have to do this, but I really like consistency and it worked well with the lesson! If you don't have a popsicle sticks with a color you want just color your popsicle stick with a marker! (I did with my brown.) After you write the letter, just glue your flames down ( I used regular Elmers glue) and let it dry.

Lesson: After reading the book as a shared reading my small group I handed the worksheet to the students with the candles. The letters will be jumbled and they have to try and spell the color that their candle sticks are. Example:  I hand students the purple candles, they have to spell the word purple with those letters given to them. Model an example for the students beforehand and work on spelling the word together before having them work independently. After the students correctly spell the word right, they have to write the color in the sentence frame. They then have to read their sentence out loud. After they are done, they color their cake the color they wrote in their sentence frame. Tip: For fast spellers have other colors for them to spell afterwards that are more challenging. This is a great activity for small group and working on letter sounds. Hope you enjoy!