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Activity: Which cup?

Materials:
Three paper cups, two coins
Time:
15 minutes
Skills:
Logic & reasoning

Inference is one of the most important aspects of thinking in all of mathematics. Inference is the deriving of new information from old information with logical certainty. Help your child develop her inference skills with these activities. There are three steps to playing this game; in each step the game gets harder and requires your child to infer more.

  1. Place a coin under one of the paper cups and ask your child to turn each cup over, one at a time, until she finds the coin. 
  2. Now hide 2 coins. Tell your child you have hidden two coins and ask her to turn over cups one at a time until she finds both coins.
  3. Now hide 1 coin, but this time ask your child how many turns might be needed to find it (you might need two turns before you'll know where the coin is). What if you had 4 cups? (up to 3 turns) 10 cups? Keep going!