Step-by-step tutorial
Step 1
If you're working on sight words with your child, write one word on each label and stick it on a cup. I always like playing with the most common sight words first to make the activity have the biggest effect. The 20 most popular words are: {a, I, it, the, and, in, of, to, he, is, that, was, look, you, said, for, up, go, we, play}.
Step 2
If your child is learning alphabet letters, pick five and write one on each cup like this. My almost-three-year-old knows a handful of letters already so I included two of those in the mix {c and a} and then added in three extras so that he could learn a few new ones too.
Final result!
Now, invite your child to play ABC Cup Hunt with you. Show her the item you are going to hide underneath one of the cups. I happened to have a stash of pom-poms lying around so that's what I used. Ask your child to close her eyes as you hide it. Then have her read one of the letters (or words) written on a cup. After she reads it, invite her to lift the cup up and see if the object is hiding underneath. If she is incorrect, ask her to read a different cup and then lift it. Continue playing until she finds the hidden object. To say that my son loved this game is an understatement. He was squealing with excitement from beginning to end. And, as a big bonus, he learned to recognize a few new alphabet letters along the way. Mission accomplished!
