I Spy a Fun Spelling Game!

By Michele Blandino

If you have kids or even spent any amount of time around them, chances are you've spent some time poring over an I Spy book. For the uninitiated, the I Spy series of books utilizes a unique combination of lively rhymes and incredibly detailed photo collages to help children develop problem solving and identification skills.

I Spy Games

From these books spawned a series of puzzles, memory games and card games that are built on the same concept as the award winning books. Created by educational toy innovator Briarpatch, these games take the problem solving and reasoning lessons a few steps further while still remaining true to the visual appeal of the books.

One of the latest offerings in the I Spy line is their Word Scramble game. Designed for children over the age of seven, this game uses picture cards, a letter board with moveable tiles (similar to those puzzles we used to do as kids) and a two-minute timer.

No Complicated Rules

The object is fairly straight-forward: draw a picture card and, by moving the tiles on the letter board, spell as many words that correspond to those pictures as you can before the timer runs out. The words can be formed in separate rows, or interconnected, similar to the way Scrabble is played. Each letter used earns one point and words containing more than five letters score bonus points. The player with the most points at the end of four rounds (each round consists of one turn per player) wins.

What makes this game different from the run-of-the-mill spelling games is that players are allowed to interject a little creativity. For example, if one of the pictures is of an umbrella and you don't think you can form that word in the allotted period, you can use a related word like "rainy" or "wet". This flexibility makes this game particularly well suited for younger players who may not have fully developed their spelling skills. The picture cards are double sided; one side contains pictures of easy-to-spell words such as "cat", "dog" and "house" while the reverse side contains more advanced words such as "umbrella" and "bicycle".

Another good feature of this game is that it can easily be played with one player. While the child playing wouldn't necessarily keep score, they can still have fun trying to spell as many words as possible before the timer runs out.