Cupcake Subtraction Craft Activity

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I love creating activities to go along with books we love! Today we’re reading Pete the Cat and the Missing Cupcakes!

Pete the Cat and his friend Gus are making cupcakes for a cupcake party they are having. When they have finished making the cupcakes, they suddenly start to disappear. They continue to do so and they try to figure out who has been taking them. By the end of the book, they find out who the cupcake muncher has been, they forgive him and invite him to the cupcake party as well.

To go along with the story, I made this Cupcake Subtraction Craft Activity.

Cupcake Subtraction Activity

This would make a great hands-on math activity for the kiddos. You can use it as a center, or you could use it as a visual while reading the book aloud to the class or group.

You’ll simply print out the 2 pages that you can download at the bottom of this post for each student. Have them color the pictures and cut them out. They can use them to make different subtraction problems. Or you could create subtraction problems on index cards and have them complete them using the cupcakes as counters to help.

Using them as a whole group, just print out and color one copy. You could even laminate so it can be used over and over again. As you read the story, each time 2 of the cupcakes disappear, have a student remove that many. Have the class complete the new subtraction problem each time.

Cupcake Subtraction Craft

My favorite is to use it as a math craft project to display in the classroom. Follow the same as above, print, color, and cut out the 2 pages. To make it into a craft, each student will need a large piece of construction paper.

Before gluing everything down on the paper, have them start with ten cupcakes. They can choose how many cupcakes to take away to create their subtraction problem. Have them fill in the numbers on the rectangle word problem paper. They can then glue the number of cupcakes on the sheet that matches their answer. They can glue the cupcakes they took away to the top of the construction paper or under the word problem rectangle if they have room.