I’d like to apologize in advance for the grief that you may experience from your children begging you to play this game with them to no end or from them playing it themselves for hours and hours.
The cup game is a rhythm game played with plastic cups.
To play, the group plays a special beat with their hands and their cup. At the end of the “song” their cup is passed to the person to their right and it all starts over again slightly faster. Everyone continues to play trying to go faster and faster together
But, the easiest way to learn the game is by watching –
Here is the basic pattern for the beats laid out:
clap, clap
tap, tap, tap
clap,
grab, move
pause
clap
grab
hit (hand with cup)
hit (table with cup)
switch (cup from right to left hand)
slap (table with right hand)
overturn (cup with left hand, passing to person on your right)
Image © Kevin Lawver @ Flickr, Share Alike