On the morning of my birthday, my art-loving daughter surprised me with a cute, handmade, 3-D birthday cupcake card!
The birthday cupcake card was so adorable and original, and my daughter wanted to make more with me!
Educational, cute, and easy-to-make birthday cupcake cards
Inspired by my daughter’s birthday card, I adapted and integrated some reading practice into our cupcake cards!
My daughter loves to make cards for other people, so I follow her interest and try to integrate Chinese reading and writing practice with arts and crafts!
Chinese is a minority language for our family, and since Chinese words are sight words, frequent exposure with matching games is a fun way to help with memorizing Chinese characters.
More importantly, homemade cards are also simply the best thing to get from a child! We rarely buy cards from the store, and my daughter and I are having a blast creating together!
Important vocabulary about birthdays
纸杯蛋糕 / 紙杯蛋糕 (Zhǐbēi dàngāo / Cupcake)
蜡烛 / 蠟燭 (Làzhú / Candle)
点火 / 點火 (Diǎnhuǒ / Light fire)
火柴 (Huǒchái / Matches)
生日 (Shēngrì / Birthday)
生日快乐 / 生日快樂 (Shēngrì kuàilè / Happy Birthday)
祝你生日快乐 / 祝你生日快樂 (Zhù nǐ shēngrì kuàilè / I wish you a happy birthday)
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How to make cupcake cards into a sight word matching activity
Here are easy-to-DIY instructions for these adorable birthday cards and how to make it educational!
Please note that you can substitute Chinese characters for letters or numbers depending your child’s language and learning level!
Measure desired size of cards. Mark with pen and ruler; cut along line.
Fold cupcake liners in half and tuck in so the edge forms a C-shape
Squeeze glue on cardboard
Pull apart cotton balls and affix to cardboard
Squeeze glue on inside of cupcake liner. Place over cotton balls.
Insert toothpick. This is the candlestick!
Write words above toothpick candlestick
Cut out candle flames from yellow paper
Write matching words on candle flames
Affix double-sided tape on back of candle flames
Putting together the birthday cupcake
Here’s a close-up of where I applied glue to the cupcake liners.
After tucking in the cupcake liner into a “C” shape, I put Elmer’s glue on the side and inside (purple) edge. This helped the cupcake liner stick to the cotton, and the result is a fun 3-dimensional pop-up cupcake!
Elmer’s glue at the bottom of cupcake liner
Cutting the birthday candle flame
Here’s how I folded the yellow paper so that the flame cut-outs are the same size.
I drew the flame too small the first few times, but third time was the charm!
Folding yellow construction paper for ease of cutting flame shapes
I recommend making the flame large so that the writing is large and easy-to-read!
Birthday cupcake cards: Teaching ideas
Match words on candle flame to card
Mix up the order of the cards and have your child arrange them in the correct order
Initially, I planned to teach her the traditional Chinese version of the simplified characters that she has learned. However, until preparing the activity, I did not realize that 樂 was the only character that is different in traditional Chinese.
Also, she already learned 樂 from her Qiaohu workbooks. 樂 is one of her favorite Chinese characters in traditional form because of all of the beautiful strokes!
Next time, I will be more mindful of writing new Chinese words! Regardless, it was still a fun activity!
My daughter wanted to add these cute mini angel stickers!
DIY Birthday cupcake cards: Save this activity on Pinterest!
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