This activity builds on the Block 10 opportunity to take a toy apart and put it back together. The nesting cups used in the current activity are a good material for putting together and taking apart because they heighten awareness of size. Many toddlers will be familiar with nesting cups, but they may have had limited experiences in putting together and taking apart a set of graduated cups.

Although nesting cups typically represent a range of colors, a toddler will benefit from your focusing more on size differences than color differences. Toddlers are not expected to have a firm understanding of color names, and nesting cups do not come in uniform colors. Example: a yellow cup does not always fit into an orange cup.

Toddlers are also not expected to know the names of cup sizes, but hearing you refer to size can support early awareness of size differences that the toddler can readily feel in putting together nested cups. The activity plan uses smaller and bigger to promote early awareness of size concepts. Size is relative to other things, and assigning a size name to each nesting cup is not practical or useful at this early age.

Extra support

• If the toddler has limited experience with nesting cups, provide time for exploratory play with the cups at the beginning of the activity. Describe the toddler’s play with the cups in ways that emphasize size differences. Examples: “You are pretending to drink from a cup. You are using a smaller cup.” “Now you are pretending to drink from a bigger cup.” “Regan, you are tapping together a bigger cup and a smaller cup.” “You put a smaller cup inside a bigger cup.”
• If a toddler is not interested in or ready to nest some cups, offer an alternative activity. Example: provide small items, such as cloth balls or people figures, that the toddler can put into and remove from the cups.

Enrichment

• If a toddler readily nests 5–7 cups, invite him/her to help you line up the cups by size. Then walk your fingers along the top of the cups, starting with the smallest cup, as if they are stairsteps. Encourage the toddler to do the same.

This is a generally challenging activity, but it is not meant as a test for the toddler. It is intended as a fun experience in learning about size and how things go together. Offer as much or as little help as needed. For some toddlers, part of the challenge may be related to motor skills, especially the hand-eye coordination involved in getting a cup properly situated so it does not fall. A stacking task is more difficult than the nesting of cups in Option 1. Offer assistance with the fine motor part of the activity, keeping in mind that experience in putting together and taking apart items of different sizes is of primary interest in the current activity option.

A toddler’s participation in the activity will depend partly on awareness of the gradation in sizes and the number of times he/she has played with nesting cups. A toddler may want you to take turns placing cups on the tower. Remember to describe stacking actions and the cup arrangement, as suggested in the activity plan.

Extra support

• For the first time, offer the activity with three cups if you anticipate stacking may be challenging, yet achievable.

Enrichment

• In the beginning of the activity, offer the cups in a nested arrangement and invite the toddler to help take apart the nested cups. Then arrange the cups in the suggested line.
• A toddler who shows firm awareness of how nesting cups work might enjoy deciding which cup goes next in building a tower. Put the cups in random order, rather than a line organized by size, at the beginning of the activity.