A Piece of Cake Math Lesson
This post brought to you by HarperCollins Children’s Books. All opinions are 100% mine.
We love pretend play, reading, and learning at Inspiration Laboratories and are happy when we can combine all three. A Piece of Cake by LeUyen Pham inspired a fun cake math lesson that has plenty of room for play.
A Piece of Cake by LeUyen Pham
A Piece of Cake by LeUyen Pham is an adorable book. The illustrations are bright and lively. The characters are so much fun. From the jacket: “Mouse has baked a special treat for Little Bird’s birthday! But delivering it to his friend isn’t easy – not when everyone he meets along the way offers to trade something for a piece of cake… New York Times bestselling author LeUyen Pham whips up a surprising and clever story about kindness, creativity, generosity, and friendship.” Little Bird is resourceful. You’ll have to read the book to find out how they tackle the problem and have a happy ending. It’s a great read.
It’s perfect for working on foreshadowing. Have your child predict what’s going to happen next. Turn the page. Is that what really happened? They’ll love the unexpected twists {and so will you}.
We love so many books from HarperCollins Children’s Books. {They had 53 titles on the best sellers list this year.} We’re happy they’ve added A Piece of Cake to their published list.
A Piece of Cake Math Lesson
As we read the book, I saw the opportunity for a math lesson. Mouse is passing out pieces of cake. It’s a lesson in subtraction.
We used two cakes for this lesson – one paper cake with 8 pieces and one wooden Melissa & Doug Birthday Party Cake
We talked about how many pieces of cake we had at the start {6, 8, or 14}. Aiden rolled a die {you could also draw cards or pick numbers at random}. He then took away that many pieces of cake and served it to someone {a person in the room or a toy}. Then, he figured out how many pieces of cake he had left. {He counted them.} He continued this process until he was out of cake. We all had to pretend to eat our cake. Then, we started again.
For example, we started with 6 pieces of cake. He rolled a 1. He took away one piece of cake. He now had 5 pieces of cake left.
Next, he rolled a three. Now he had 2 pieces of cake.
Not only does this activity work on counting and subtraction but it also works on subitizing {knowing how many there are without actually counting 1-2-3 etc}.
I made a printable version of this math activity for you to use for personal or classroom use. Download the Piece of Cake Math printable.
Try These Related Activities Also Inspired by Books
- Bake a cup cake in the microwave {a cool kitchen science experiment}.
- Have fun with some barnyard math games.
- Play a counting goats math game and make goat puppets.
Don’t forget to grab your copy of A Piece of Cake by LeUyen Pham!
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