Foam Cup Construction with Numbers

The other day, E found a bag of foam cups in storage, and I showed her how to build a “wall” (as she calls it) with the cups. She really enjoys playing with the foam cups, and she’s also into numbers right now, so after a few days, we combined both interests and turned them into a simple Foam Cup Construction with Numbers game.

 

Foam Cup Construction with Numbers - extend a simple hand eye coordination game with numbers for more learning fun!

(E was 44 months old.)

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To do Foam Cup Construction with Numbers, you’ll need:

  • Foam cups {plastic cups work as well}.
  • Sharpies, stickers or just a pen to write numbers on the cups.

 

 

 

This is one of those activities that take 30 seconds to set up the first time, then take no effort at all to use again and again, are extremely portable, extendable, and don’t even require any clean up. I love them 🙂

At first, E just built her “walls” the regular way.

 

Foam Cup Construction with Numbers - extend a simple hand eye coordination game with numbers for more learning fun!

 

After a few days, I grabbed ten cups and a Sharpie and wrote numbers 1 to 10 on the cups. I stacked the cups again and gave them to E the next time she wanted to play.

Her first order of business was to ask me for a cup and a Sharpie to write her own number – we ended up settling on a green pen she could use 😉

 

Foam Cup Construction with Numbers - extend a simple hand eye coordination game with numbers for more learning fun!

 

With writing on cups out of the way, she checked out the numbers I’d written

 

Foam Cup Construction with Numbers - extend a simple hand eye coordination game with numbers for more learning fun!

 

and used them in numerical order to build another “wall”. {Interestingly, I never asked her to have the numbers face me, she just chose to put them up this way.}

 

Foam Cup Construction with Numbers - extend a simple hand eye coordination game with numbers for more learning fun!

 

I wasn’t sure just how far along she was in number recognition – I knew she was able to recognize a bunch but I didn’t think she quite had them all down yet.

She did need a tiny bit of help with a couple of the higher numbers and got slightly confused about how many cups to put on one level but caught on very quickly.

 

Foam Cup Construction with Numbers - extend a simple hand eye coordination game with numbers for more learning fun!

 

She was really proud when she was able to put number 10 on top.

 

Foam Cup Construction with Numbers - extend a simple hand eye coordination game with numbers for more learning fun!

 

Afterwards, she came around to my side to count the cups and make sure they were in the right order.

 

Foam Cup Construction with Numbers - extend a simple hand eye coordination game with numbers for more learning fun!

 

When it was time to clean up, she was able to do it all on her own – awesome! 🙂

 

Foam Cup Construction with Numbers - extend a simple hand eye coordination game with numbers for more learning fun!

 

Do you play with foam (or plastic) cups? What’s your favorite way to play with numbers? Leave a comment!

Do your kids love learning activities?

I've co-authored the ebook ABCs & 123s that includes 40+ learning activities for a huge range of learning objectives for kids from age 2 to 8 that I think you'll love!

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ABCs & 123s is THE book for you if you're looking for learning activities for kids from preschoolers to kindergarteners and beyond! 40+ hands-on play based FUN learning activities cover everything from letter recognition to double digit addition, from writing numbers to understanding base-ten. Your kids will have so much fun learning and reviewing all kinds of math and literacy concepts!

 

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