Friday, April 20, 2012

I Spy -- Literacy Style!

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So if we haven’t given you enough Family Literacy Friday Fun Games, we thought we’d give you another!  This week we are going to take one of the Public Allies’ favorite childhood games, “I Spy”, and add in some literacy fun.


If you are not familiar with the game “I Spy” it is simply a game of clues and guessing.  For this literacy style version of “I Spy” we will start by having the parent be the person who “spies” the object.  While keeping the object a secret from the “guessers”, pick an object that is visible in the room.  Next, create a statement beginning with “I spy” followed by a characteristic of that object. For example if the object you “spied” was a banana, you might say “I spy something yellow.” Continue your “I Spy” statements until the “guessers” have guessed the object!


Now for our literacy twist to the game, we’re going to bring in some phonics.  For each new object, have the first “I spy” statement begin “I spy something that begins with the [insert sound of the first letter of the object] sound”.  For example, if the object you chose was a map, your first “I Spy” statement would be “I spy something that begins with the [m] sound” If you need a refresher on phonics, check out our previous blog post on Phonics Fun!  If your child does not guess the object after your first “I spy” statement, continue on with the game as we described above.  So if your object was a map, for example, after your first phonics statement, your next “I Spy” statement could be “I spy something that has many colors on it.” If the "I Spy" statements that follow the initial phonics "I Spy" statement, led the child to guess a object that does not begin with the [m] sound, you might want to remind them that the object has [m] sound. For example if the second clue "I spy something that has many colors on it" and your child says "Blanket!" you could ask them "Does Blanket begin with the [m] sound?"


If your child grasps on to this game quickly and you think they might want something a little more challenging, have your child “spy” something and practice their phonics!






For more “I Spy” fun, check out the “I Spy” books from Scholastic! *Available for rent at your local library :)
Happy Friday Everyone!

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