Today, I am going to share with you how we made pumpkin exploration cups. Â Tomorrow, I will share with you some of the other cups I made for my students just to explore…
To make exploration cups (regardless of the type of exploration cup) you need to have on hand some clear plastic cups. Â I have all sizes of cups but for the pumpkin cups, I used small clear plastic cups that I purchased from Kroger (a grocery store). Â I do not recommend the clear hard plastic “Crystal” cups as they tend to crack fairly easily. Instead, I recommend the softer clear plastic cups. Â The clearer the cup, the better….
For the pumpkin cups, start by painting the outside of one cup with yellow and red paint (or you can just paint with orange paint). Â Oh, and before painting add some glue to your paint to add a little stickiness to the paint….
Leave the “bottom” of the cup unpainted. Some of our students had to be reminded to not paint the bottom of the cup. Â After the outside of the cup is painted, then stack a second clear plastic cup over the painted one…
Now twist the two stacked-together cups in opposite directions to mix the paint colors. Â If you did not use two colors – then it is not necessary to do this step (the twisting part)…
After twisting and mixing the paint colors, then take the two cups back apart. Â At this point, I gave each child a clean cup and then invited the children to add a few green (approximately 10 – 15) very tiny beans to the bottom of the clean cup. You can really use anything like such as rice, beans, or even green construction paper squares inside the clean cup.
Make sure you only have a single layer of beans on the bottom of each cup.  If you want the beans to shake and rattle, then don’t fill the entire bottom of the cup with the beans  – just use a few beans instead…
On the outside of the painted cup, add pumpkin eyes, nose, and mouth if you desire – or you can just leave the cup as is. Â The glue in the paint will help hold the pieces together.
Now place the painted cup inside the new clean cup. (Turn the clean cup upside down with the beans inside sitting on the bottom of the cup then set the painted cup inside the clean cup). Â And you have a completed pumpkin cup that shakes and rattles too. Â The glue inside the paint should help the two cups stick together once the paint dries. Â If not, you can add a dab of hot glue to keep them together….
I have been making Exploration Cups for my preschool class. Â These cups make noise, they have color, and they can be used for exploring all kinds of seeds, beans, and other types of small materials. Â I also use these cups for color mixing, sensory, music, the light table, and creative art activities. Check back tomorrow for a little more on exploration cups!
I am linking this post to: Hands On As We Grow – It’s Play Time – Spooky Halloween
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