I Spy Game and Telescope Craft for Toddlers and Preschoolers

It’s fun to incorporate a craft and a game together and as this months Virtual Book Club for Kids we’ve combined the two to create a telescope and a fun and simple I Spy game for toddlers and preschoolers to play perfect for some Rainy Day Fun.

At the moment I am working with T at home on colours as everything this week is Yellow – last week it was Green and from some simple games we have been playing it’s obvious that colours is something that she hasn’t grasped so as well as bringing the book “Shark in the Park” by Nick Sharratt alive for her (one of our favourite bedtime stories) it was the perfect opportunity to work on colours with her with a familiar game I Spy.

What you need for a simple Toddler Telescope Craft

Long Cardboard Tube
Paint
Buttons/Jewels/Stickers/Markers

Creating and Playing

After reading Shark in the Park by Nick Sharratt T was very focused on the telescope in the story – enjoying the repetition of the story where Timothy Pope the character in the story repeats his method of using the telescope so creating a simple telescope craft that she could complete with minimal help seemed the perfect start to bringing the book alive.

Cardboard Tube crafts are great even for little hands – T now just over 2 and a half loves creating with them and they form a large part of our junk modelling box and combing with paint is one of her first choices for our “Making Time”.

Working with colours I gave her scope to choose what colour paint she wanted – we took time to look at the paints and also review her colour words – she knows the names of colours but doesn’t seem to connect them with the actual colour – so after deciding on Yellow (this weeks favourite colour) she set about painting it.

Once dry it was time to decorate with some items from our bits and bobs box – this was T’s choice and also a great activity for fine motor skills – picking up small objects from the box, then in the case of the items she choose peeling off the sticker backs – at this point and with the toddler age range it’s not about making the telescope look like a precise telescope but more about getting creating and engaging in the process of making something.

Once everything was dry and firmly stuck we started to play a simple I Spy Game – working on the colours I would suggest an I Spy – “I spy with my little eye something that is green” whilst looking out of the window (it’s raining a lot in the UK at the moment) and then T would look through the telescope finding the green objects.

We’ve now being playing this for over a week and T is getting better and better at identifying the right colour to the object – she’s also started to take the lead – although we still get some very random colours – I Spy with my little eye something that is purple….. turns out that was the tree!

Virtual Book Club for Kids

The Virtual Book Club for Kids is a monthly activity based blog hop that anyone can join in. Focused on a single author each month we invite you to read books by that author and then bringing them alive through play, crafts, learning activities or recipes. This months author is Nick Sharratt another one of our favourite authors and illustrators.

Check out my post from the Summer bringing the book Foggy Foggy Forest by Nick Sharratt alive using Sun Prints to produce silhouettes like those found in the book with natural objects found in the garden and on Nature Walks.

There are a few rules to the Virtual Book Club for Kids Blog Hop

Author

Cerys Parker

Cerys is a marine biologist, environmental educator, teacher, mum, and home educator from the UK. She loves getting creative, whether it is with simple and easy crafts and ideas, activities to make learning fun, or delicious recipes that you and your kids can cook together you'll find them all shared here on Rainy Day Mum.