Magnet and Plastic Cups Play for Toddlers

Today’s simple invitation to play using magnets and plastic yogurt cups turned to something completely different as play continued and my toddler decided to use additional elements to prolong the play. As we played with our magnets and cups, we talked about letters, numbers, colors and worked on fine motor skills.

There was a bit of science involved too although my toddler is still too young to understand the concept of magnetism. However, that doesn’t stop us from seeing how it works.

Magnets and Plastic Yogurt Cups - simple invitation to play for toddlers, practice fine motor skills, work on letter, number and color recognition, build awesome city with plastic cups and add

Sometimes, the best things you can do for your kids is to put few things in front of them and let them create their own play. Today’s invitation to play started very simple: I gave my toddler a bunch of cheap alphabet and number magnets, bunch of plastic yogurt cups and metal spoon to play with and transfer it from one cup to another. As you will see, by the end of the play, she turned it into something completely different! Sometimes I’m amazed by the way kids can create their own play!

She was a bit confused at first. Magnets wouldn’t want to come off the spoon! She had to use her left hand to help them transfer to cup. She picked up fast and began to move magnets, each to its own cup. Soon enough, she ran out of cups because there were more magnets than cups. She just added more magnets to the cups she had.

I tried to converse with her which magnet represents which letter or number but she mostly recognized numbers and very few letters, so we moved from letters and numbers to colors and name which color is each of the magnet.

Once she filled all the cups, she noticed a train set she had next to her on the floor and began building a city around the tracks using yogurt cups for houses and adding “house numbers” using magnets.

She continued her play with train tracks for quite some time, arranging and rearranging houses around the tracks and building up her a nice, large city.

Things we used for today’s play, can be purchased here if you’re interested to get it for your toddlers (affiliate):
magnetic letters & alphabets (US / UK)wooden train set (US / UK)

How would your toddlers play with magnets and cups?
Do you have a play idea to share with us?

Today’s post is part of 60 Day Junk Play Challenge and we had as material prompt today YOGURT CONTAINERS.

To read more about Junk Play Challenge and get involved upcycling your trash for play, stop by our 60 Day Junk Play Challenge page.

Looking for more fun things to do with your kids? We want to recommend you our new book – Learn with Play (150+ Activities for Year-Round Fun and Learning)! You will find inside easy to prepare activities for everyday fun as well for all seasons and holidays! Here is a preview for you: