Patent Application
20070110930
This invention relates to cups for play and education.
Every parent or caregiver has been in the situation where he or she has found it difficult to keep young children occupied and stimulated. The ubiquitous challenge to keep young children engaged in interesting activities surfaces in visits to doctors, friends, restaurants, home, in short, almost everywhere.
Embodiments according to the present invention help to keep young children in affordable, fun and educational activities for hours, thereby providing interactive alternate solutions to passive activities such as watching television.
The present invention provides educational and fun play cups for keeping young children at an interactive activity. A cup according to the present invention includes a printed material on its side such that the printed material is right side up when the cup is upside down.
In use, a child plays a plurality of cups according to the present invention, and thus engages with a plurality of printed materials shown on the cups. Using the printed materials on the cups as a guide, the child may stack, sort, match, and arrange the cups. The printed material are fun and educational, thus the child's attention may be engaged in educational process while he or she is playing with the cups.
A game set according to the present invention includes a plurality of cups according to the present invention and a mat having a plurality of printed materials. The printed materials on the plurality of cups comprise a first series of printed material, while the plurality of printed materials on the mat comprises a second series of printed materials. A child may be engaged to identify, sort and match an item in the first series to the corresponding item in the second series.
Cups and game sets according to the present invention enable numerous educational and fun activities, such as, among other things, spelling words, making phrases, counting numbers, identifying shapes and colors, and even learning foreign languages.
a shows an embodiment of cup 10 according to the present invention when the cup is right side up.
b shows an embodiment of cup 10 according to the present invention when the cup is upside down.
a shows an embodiment for an educational cup 10 according to the present invention when the cup is right side up. Cup 10 comprises a top 12, a bottom 14, a side 16, and a printed material 18 on the side 16 of the cup.
b shows the educational cup 10 when the cup is upside down. In particular,
Cup 10 may be any drinkable cup of any size. However, they are preferably made from disposable materials such as paper and plastic (hereinafter “disposable”). In addition, they are preferably five (5) ounce cups.
The printed material 18 on cup 10 may include any educational and fun materials for children.
A child may stack a plurality of cups 10 to build a pyramid structure 40, as shown in
In addition, while a child is engaged with the cups 10, a caregiver can also emphasize the learning experience by bringing the printed materials 18 on the cups to the child's attention. As an example, a series of letters may be used to teach young children how to put together words, such as “hi” 42 and “dog” 44, as shown in
As can be appreciated by those who care for children, cups 10 according to the present invention facilitate numerous educational and fun children's activities. For example, the colors in the printed materials may be used to teach the child the names of colors; while the shapes in the printed materials may be used to teach the child the names of shapes; and the alphanumeric printed materials may be used to teach the child the opposites, rhymes, or even a foreign language.
Again, as can be appreciated by those engaged in child caring, numerous educational and fun games may be played using cups 10 and mat 50. As an example, the first series of printed materials 18 on cups 10 may be letters of the alphabet and the second series of printed materials 52 on mat 50 may be shapes of the objects whose name starts with the letters shown on cups 10. The child is then directed find the item in the second series of printed materials 52 that starts with a letter shown on one of the cups 10. As another example, the first series of printed materials 18 may be names of colors and the second series of printed materials 52 may be colored shapes. The child is then directed to match using the colors on the cups as a guide, each cup with the corresponding item in the second series of printed materials 52. In addition, cups 10 according to the present invention may be used to play popular games such as, among other things, crosswords, scrabble, and checkers, as well as construction games, such as, among other things, build-a-house, build-a-picture, and build-a-castle. Cups 10 according to the present invention may also be used to inform children regarding events such as, among other things, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Passover, and Hanukah, as well as regarding subjects such as, among other things, zoos, flags, presidents, countries, and states. Accordingly, educational and fun play cups and games sets according to the present invention may be used for innumerable fun and stimulating activities.
Numerous modifications to and alternative embodiments of the present invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art in view of the foregoing description. Accordingly, this description is to be construed as illustrative only and is for the purpose of teaching those skilled in the art the best mode of carrying out the invention. Details of the embodiment may be varied without departing from the spirit of the invention, and the exclusive use of all modifications which come within the scope of the appended claims is reserved.
