The I Spy books by Jean Marzollo and Walter Wick as well as the Can You See What I See books by Wick are wonderful books that invite children on an exciting adventure to use their developing observation skills to look carefully for strategically placed objects in visually appealing scenic photographs.

Helping children know as much about the process of observation and creating searching games will not only make the experience more fun, but it will also provide them with more information for how to best approach the activity.  Take a look at this video of a walk through Walter Wick’s studio.  The process he uses to build his scenes for his photographs is fascinating.

At Catherine Cook School in Chicago, we have observed even our learners as young as three years old enjoying the experience of creating their own I Spy-like scenes.  There are many ways to approach the creation of these scenes, and embracing a mathematical focus can be extremely exciting for children, as well as informative for parents and teachers.  Consider these steps to create a video:

Step 1 (Parent/teacher):

Identify the mathematical skills or concepts you hope to observe and/or invite the children to explore.

For example:

• The I Spy video will focus on basic shapes: “Find 3 squares, find 2 circles, find 4 rectangles.”
• The I Spy video will focus on number identification: “Find 3 number 2’s, find 1 number 10, find 2 number 8’s”
• The I Spy video will focus on quantities:  “Find 3 pieces chickens, find 6 kittens, find 8 light bulbs”

Challenge: Depending on the abilities of the children in your care or class, consider combining skills and concepts.

For example: The I Spy video will focus on quantities AND shapes: “Find 3 red squares, find 2 yellow circles, find 4 blue rectangles.”

Step 2 (Parent/teacher and child(ren)):

Make/write a visual list of the items to be found in the I Spy scene.

Step 3

Invite the child(ren) to search for those necessary items around the house or classroom as well as other items to assemble and create the scene.

Step 4

After carefully arranging the items together on a table or tray, grab your tablet and a take clear photograph of the scene.

Step 5

Install the application, Draw and Tell by Duck Duck Moose on your tablet.

Take a tour of the Draw and tell app by Duck Duck Moose here.

Step 6

Launch the application and use the photograph taken of the scene from the Camera Roll/Photographs and use it as the background.

Step 7

Use the recording feature of the Draw and Tell application to tell and point out where the items are in the scene.

Step 8

Save your video to the Camera Roll/Photographs and share with friends, family, teachers, or whomever you like via email or social media.  When sharing the video via email or social media, be sure to include the list of items to find in the scene!

Enjoy creating your own I Spy videos!

In 2016, I had the honor of being an Early Career Fellow for the Fred Rogers Center.  In this role, my charge was to develop a concept for an application that brought art, communication, and language together.  This open-ended application invites children of many ages to create stories independently or collaboratively without having to have their co-creator sitting next to them.  Once a child creates an illustration, they can record a narration and send it to a buddy.  Their buddy receives the illustration, listens to the narration and then can make any changes they want to the illustration as well as their own narration and send it back (up to ten exchanges). Take a look at this video for a quick tutorial:

This application is currently available for iPad only.  There is an update in progress which includes adding the color brown to the crayon selections. Price: Free

One of most popular opponent views to technology in early childhood is that is isolates children from other children and valuable social experiences.  One of my goals with this application was to an experience where children can be creative together without having to be sitting next to each other.  Soon after this application was released I was overjoyed to see my 3-year-old daughter Lydia co-creating a scene with her cousin Jaelyn who lives in Appleton, WI. Their scene included all sorts of items, similar to an I Spy scene.  Jaelyn’s challenge to Lydia was to find 4 apples that she added to her illustration.  Lydia was then to circle those apples.  From there is turned into finding other characters that were added.

In this experience Lydia was able to meaningful engage with her cousin in a both creative and mathematical experience.  If we were to pull apart the skills exercised here, Jaelyn, who was five years old at the time had to come up with the challenge, identifying the specific number of items she chose, and then strategically place them in the illustration.  Lydia then had find those items and keep track of how many she had found as she observed the illustration.  Lydia then made an attempt to add her own items and assign Jaelyn the task of finding the items Lydia added.

In supporting children creating their own Number Challenges in ChromaKids, consider this approach to creating a plan:

1. Who do you want to send the challenge to?
2. What characters would you like to include?
3. What are the items you would like to hide?
4. How many items would you like to hide?
   1. Will there be more than one item?
   2. How many of each item?
5. How will your buddy let you know that they have found the items?
   1. A circle around them?
   2. A square around them?
   3. An audio recording telling where they are?
6. What will you say when you make the audio recording of your challenge?
   1. How will you make sure you include the full directions for your buddy?

You will be amazed to see what children can come up with.  Don’t forget to join in on the fun in creating these challenges!