Social interaction skills
A young infant participates with a caregiver in responsive interactions focused on nesting cups.
Be Prepared: Select two nesting cups of contrasting colors.
[Place the infant on his/her tummy in front of you. Sit on the floor very close to the infant so he/she can see your face and hear your voice.
Engage the infant with a big smile, eye contact, and a verbal welcome. Example: “Hello, Jacob! I am happy to see you today! Would you like to play with me?” Acknowledge the infant’s reaction. Example: “I can hear you cooing, Sofia. You are talking to me. I think you would like to play!”]
[Place the two cups about 12 inches from the infant with cup openings facing up.]
Here are two cups we can play with! Maybe you would like to touch the cups.
[Pause for the infant’s response to the cups. If the infant does not reach for or touch a cup, move one of the cups closer to the infant. If the infant looks at but does not touch or grasp a cup, slowly show and describe some ways to play with the cups. Examples:
After showing and describing some things to do with the cups, move the cups closer to the infant and wait for a reaction.
Describe what the infant does and what you do. Examples: “You are holding the blue cup, Joshua. You are feeling the cup with your mouth.” “I am tapping the two cups together. Tap, tap, tap. Do you hear the tapping sound?”
Encourage the infant to pursue things that seem to be of interest. Examples: “You are looking at the cups and smiling. Would you like to hold a cup? Here, I will help you.” “Your eyes got big when I tapped the two cups together. Would you like me to do it again?”
Offer brief pauses so the infant can respond and contribute. Respond to vocalizations by repeating and expanding the utterance.]
[Offer a brief description of the interaction. Example: “Thank you for playing with me, Sofia. You held the blue cup. You listened to the sound of the cups tapping together. You smiled at me and I smiled at you! We had fun together!”]
Social interaction skills
An infant participates in responsive interactions with a caregiver while playing with nesting cups.
Be Prepared: This activity is for an infant who can sit independently or with support. Select four nesting cups of different contrasting colors.
Invite an infant to sit on the floor with you to play with nesting cups. Sit across from one another. Place two cups in front of the infant and two cups in front of you. Each of the two sets of cups (yours and the infant’s), should include one cup with its opening facing up and the other cup with its opening facing down. This arrangement emphasizes some key characteristics of the cups.
Wait for the infant to take the first action(s) with a cup(s). If the infant does not touch or reach for a cup after a moment, move one of the cups closer to the infant and encourage him to touch or hold it. If the infant continues to leave the cups alone, use your cups to show and describe one or several ways to play with the cups. Examples: Tapping the cups together to make a soft noise or putting one cup inside the other cup and then lifting and turning over the nested cups so one cup falls out. Pause for the infant to act with his/her cups.
If the infant continues to watch but not act with his/her cups, invite the infant to help you with one of your previously demonstrated actions with your cups. Examples: You and the infant could tap cups together (each one of you holding a cup) or you could put a cup inside a larger cup held by the infant and then encourage the infant to turn over the nested cups so the smaller cup falls to the floor.
The infant is likely to play with the cups you present to him/her. Support the infant’s play in the following ways:
Conclude the activity with a brief description of what happened. Emphasize interactions between you and the infant. Example: “We had fun playing with the cups today, Xavier! You tapped your cups together. Then I tapped my cups together! You laughed when I did what you did. Thank you for playing with me!”
Social interaction skills
An older infant participates in back-and-forth exchanges with a caregiver while playing with nesting cups.
Be Prepared: This activity is for an infant who can sit independently.Put the largest four nesting cups together.
Invite the infant to sit across from you in an open floor space to play with nesting cups. Place the nested cups between you, with opening facing up. Initiate taking turns removing cups, one at a time, from the set of nested cups. First pick up the cup on top and place it on the floor with its opening down (opening is on the floor). Describe what you are doing. Next, invite the infant to do what you just did: pick up the next cup on the top of the nested cups and place it on the floor with its opening down. (It is okay if the infant does not put the opening face down; you can make this adjustment later.) Then you repeat this action with the third cup. Invite the infant to turn over the remaining fourth cup, so its opening is on the floor.
Next, invite the infant to work with you in stacking the four cups. Initiate this action by putting the largest cup in front of the infant (remaining face down) and then handing the infant the next largest cup to put on top of the largest cup. Offer verbal support to the infant, if needed, on where to put the cup. Avoid taking over the task. Continue this process until the smallest of the four cups is on the top of the stack. Then invite the infant to knock over the stack of cups. Offer an enthusiastic response. Example: “Wow, you knocked down the cups, Damien! We stacked the cups. Now the cups are on the floor!”
The infant is likely to want to repeat the stacking process and especially the knocking-over action. Conclude the session by emphasizing the shared actions. Example: “This was fun! We worked together to take apart the cups. Then we worked together to stack the cups. Then you knocked down our stack of cups! We both laughed! Thank you for playing with me!”
The activity options continue the practice of using a toy to facilitate positive interactions between you and the infant. Look more at an infant’s facial expressions than at his/her actions with a cup. What matters most in each activity is the interpersonal connection between you and the infant, not whether a cup is being used in a particular way. The back-and-forth exchanges suggested in Option 3 may not be fully realized (or realized at all) in some situations. Infants cannot be expected to understand the concept of taking turns, but many will enjoy a supportive pattern of interactions with a caregiver.
Nesting cups are a favorite of infants and offer many different possibilities for manipulation. Infants are not expected to nest or stack the cups independently, but older infants will enjoy doing so with caregiver guidance as suggested in the Option 3 plan.
Extra support
Enrichment
Materials Needed: assortment of cups (including some nesting cups), assortment of small toys (such as balls or animals)
Be Prepared: Create an interesting arrangement of cups and toys for infants to discover. Example: Place some toys in cups, and place other toys on top of cups turned upside down.
Cups can be enjoyable, open-ended materials for infants to explore. Encourage infants to explore the cups and toys in their own ways. Some infants will enjoy placing toys in and out of the cups. Others may enjoy tapping two cups together. Describe infants’ actions.
Materials Needed: assortment of cups (including some nesting cups), assortment of small toys (such as balls or animals), sensory or water table
Children of all ages enjoy playing with nesting cups. While an infant engages in one of the suggested activity options, an older child and a toddler could work together to nest and stack a set of cups. Young children will often place small toys in cups and then remove them. Cups can be placed in a sensory or water table to encourage scooping and pouring.
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