Dear Reader,
I confess, this isn’t the activity I had planned for today, but watching my preschooler use her imagination from something she had seen before sparked my interest and we went with it. Living in the moment with preschool-aged kids is essential.
I also confess that in order for this game to be real, as in the “magic” game adults know and love, using all the same color of cups is essential. But when I tried that, my preschooler wasn’t nearly as interested. To vary even further from the real cups and ball game, there is a ball under every cup. But my preschooler was not content with only one ball in play. So instead of the real cups and ball game, it was more of a “guess what color is under the cup,” game. Which required a lot of “don’t peek,” moments.
I think, developmentally, she got more from playing it her way, anyway. We reinforced colors (she knows them all), we built up the basic science skill of guessing as we took turns switching what color was under which cup, and we still got the benefit of bilateral movement as she switched the cups around (which she thoroughly enjoyed). We even video-called Grandma and got her in on the guessing game, which was also a highlight.
After a while, the game kind of evolved and I just let her keep going. She pulled out her stamps and built towers out of the balls, cups, and stamps. It became a sand castle. I left her to play in her new way, as I had to get back to my daily tasks (and harvest season), and watched her imagination soar as the cups became a sand castle, equipped with flags on the towers.
