Last cupful


A water-fight playground game with a 1 second re-setup

Last cupful logo Play outside! Last cupful logo

Goal

  • Be the last one with (the most) water still in your cup.

Setup:

  • Give everyone a cup of water.

Begin:

  • Raise your cups and yell “Last cupful”.
    • Raising your cup lets everyone know you are ready to play.

Lose

  • Spill your cup of water.
  • Once you have no water in your cup you are out for that round (not allowed to attack anyone else).

Win

  • Bump or
  • Scare everyone else’s water out of their cups.

Rematch

  • Refill cups.
    • A big o’ bucket of water makes this easiest.

Details

Equipment

  • Paper cups.
    • 4 oz “Dixie” cups.
  • A bucket of water: because refilling is much faster when everyone can dip their cup in to restart.

House rules:

  • A large open space that can get wet is best. Anywhere you would have a waterballoon fight.
  • Get everyone to agree to clean up after you play.
  • Hold your cup in the palm of your hand with your fingers outstretched.
    • When playing with little ones (1st graders) let them just hold the cup.
    • For an extra challenge place your cup on the back of your hand.

Variants:

  • Informal teams?
  • Formal teams?
  • Someone with a larger cup?

Did not work well

  • 4oz paper “Souffle” cups:
    • When filled with water these collapsed into disks too quickly. Kids only got one round out of the cups.

Credits

Created by Randall Li.

For my kids: A ‘n E

This game was inspired by Johann Sebastian Joust

Versions

1.0

First published version.