Our kids absolutely adore the I Spy book series from Scholastic. They will literally spend hours pouring over the books to find the items listed. A while ago, they moved up from just reading the books to making books of their own. They would draw pictures embedded within pictures and lists of what to find. They compiled these into books to challenge the family. The other day, they surprised me by setting up a 3-D “real life” I Spy puzzle using toys and household items arranged inside a Barbie castle in my daughters’ room. I was very impressed by their creativity, not only with setting up the puzzle scene, but with the rhymes they wrote as well (all on their own, mind you). They wrote things such as:

“I spy a horse, a tack, a miniature bed,
And two golden crowns of kings long dead.”

If you and your children do not know these books, I encourage you to take a look at them. Your local library surely should have some in stock. Ours is a very small-town library and even they have a large selection, including first readers for the littlest ones. If you do not find them in your library, or would just like to own some yourself (we have quite a sampling ourselves), you will find an enormous selection HERE on Amazon.

Once you are familiar with the series and are ready to try building a puzzle of your own, I suggest you visit Homemade I Spy on the Scholastic website. They give you ideas, suggestions, and instructions on making your own puzzles and writing the rhymes to go along with them. The entire I Spy website is wonderful for free downloads, printables, and online games for the avid I Spy connoisseur. I believe our next project will be taking digital pictures of the kids’ puzzles, printing them out, adding the rhymes for finding items, and combine them all into a more “professional” looking I Spy book. So many things you could do! Have Fun!