Tag: cups

Colored Stacking Cups

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Colored Stacking Cups (12)

Here’s a twist on a recent game I played with Veronika, in which I simply presented her with a stack of plastic cups to pile and nest any which way.

This time, I had a pack of pretty cups in see-through pastels: think spring greens and rosy pinks, and daffodil orange.

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I gave Veronika the cups in hopes of not just stacking and nesting but also so we could play around with light and shadow. Veronika is so into her shadow these days (“Hi shadow!” she says on our walks), so I knew she would love this.

Sure enough, first she was just interested in the cups as…cups.

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To my amazement, she quickly had them in one huge pile!

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Lest I think this was just an accident, she then moved the cups out of her big pile and created another, off to her other side.

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But the real magic happened once the sun was at an angle, streaming into our living room. I showed her how the rings of the cups showed up as a circle shadow on our rug.

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“Hi shadow!” she said. You can then play around with how the shadow changes depending where the cups are stacked, or even just at different angles to the sun.

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Needless to say, they were just gorgeous to play with in the window.

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Although the building of complicated structures is beyond Veronika at eighteen months old, I loved showing her the dazzling effect.

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She loved adding the finishing touch!

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And when the sun goes down, you can just go back to regular cup towers.

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Snowman Stacking Cups

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Snowman Stack (5)

There are so many uses for these easy little snowman figures, from competitive stacking games to imaginative play. All you need are 12 Styrofoam cups and you’re ready to go.

The game couldn’t be easier to set up. First, we cut circles from adhesive-back black felt for the eyes. Whoops – at this point they looked almost like ghosts. Wrong time of year!

Snowman Stack (1)

Orange carrot noses and little dotted mouths helped set things right. Now they looked like snowmen.

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For older kids, you can stage great stacking games to see which formations you can come up with…

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…or who can stack them the fastest. Travis had a hard time getting the snowmen into a pyramid, but he loved running the stopwatch and timing while I tried! Note of caution: static electricity can make things especially funny and interesting when it comes to stacking Styrofoam.

Snowman Stack (4)

After that we used our cups more as a playful prop. Travis set all the snowmen up for a picnic with a campfire.

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We decided snowmen would melt if they had a hot campfire, so made it out of… shredded coconut snow!

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Nothing wrong with stealing a nibble.

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Again, for Travis as a preschooler, stacking into complicated arrangements wasn’t interesting. He preferred to pile the snowmen atop one another into one big stack.

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But big kids (and moms and dads!) can heat up the snowman stacking competition to see who goes the fastest, or who comes up with the best stacking arrangement.

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What games will you play with your snowmen cups? Please share in the comments!