This low-prep activity can be modified for many different skills!
We often say that teaching phonics skills is a lot like baking a cake. Just like following a recipe, teaching them in the correct order is essential for students to become fluent readers. The very first skills students must master? Letter sound correspondence! Students need to be able to match individual sounds to the individual letters that spell them.
This easy cup hunt game is a simple and engaging way for students to build their letter sound correspondence skills. Bonus: it can be easily adapted to practice sight words and even numbers and math facts, too!
Give the game a go and then join the priority list for our VIP teaching membership, The Science of Reading Formula, so you can unlock access to all of our print-and-go teaching tools in one time-saving spot.
Alphabet Practice Setup
We love making learning not only brain-friendly and fun, but also low prep. This alphabet practice activity checks all of those boxes.
All you need are these four simple supplies:
- 5 cups
- 5 mailing labels
- A marker
- Something to hide (small balls, marbles, pom poms, etc.)
After gathering your supplies, choose 5 letters and write each one on a cup.
That’s it! Your prep is done. See?! We promised it was easy.
Alphabet Practice Cup Hunt
The most engaging part of this game? Finding the hidden “treasure”! It can be anything you want: a bouncy ball, marble, craft pom pom, unifix cube… The possibilities are endless.
Secretly hide the treasure under a cup while students close their eyes. Then have a student read the letter sound on one of the cups and lift it up to see if the treasure is hiding inside it.
If they discover the hidden object, the student wins the game and everyone closes their eyes so you can hide the treasure again.
But if the object is not under the cup they read, have students read another cup before lifting it up to see what’s waiting inside it.
Continue playing until students have the chance to read all of the cups several times. They will love that the playful alphabet practice game is so fun to play and YOU will love that it is so easy to set up. It’s a win-win!
The Fun Starts Here!
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I love this idea! What a simple way to practice letters or words.
Thank you, Gina! It’s one of my favorites too. 🙂
At Easter time, write letters or sight words on plastic Easter eggs and scatter them in the yard or around the house. If the child can tell you the letter or word, they get the treat inside.
Fun idea, Jill! Thanks so much for sharing.
Great idea, and so simple to prepare. I wonder if it would work for sight words.
You’re right, Rebecca. The cup hunt is a perfect activity for sight words practice. 🙂
Love this idea! With the alphabet letters, you could also reverse the method. Using small candies or treats, hide one under a cup and then have them figure out which cup it’s under my providing a word whose first letter corresponds with the correct cup. Ex: The word is ‘Cat’ and I’ve hidden a treat under the cup marked ‘C’.
Oooh! I LOVE that idea, Kait!!
Great game! Children love to find things. I like how it is very repetitive, but fun because of the “treasure” the kids are finding. You could even put a little treat or snack under the cup. Thanks for sharing at Mom’s Library!
Comment
hi
i like this idea
my child is 3.3 yrs old
he cant recognize the alphabets well
would like to know a suggestion that SHOULD I TEACH HIM FIRST THE UPPER CASE OR LOWER CASE
please guide thanks
Hi Ankita,
I’m happy to read that you’re a fan of the cup hunt!
Most US preschools start with the uppercase letters first and then move on to lowercase letters in kindergarten. But many people suggest that kids should actually learn the lowercase letters first because they see them more often in text. Either way, you can’t go wrong. Once children begin learning letters they often begin making connections between uppercase and lowercase quite quickly.
All the best,
Malia
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Yay! Hope your students enjoy too!
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Lovely activities.
Lovely activities