I Spy Fun!

Here's a great program suggestion from my colleague Karen Bernau at Knutson Memorial Library in Coon Valley (WI). Easy and fun for staff and kids...what more could you ask for? Here's Karen:

Among the easiest, cheapest and most fun programs I have done have been those “I Spy” programs based on the I Spy books. We collect all sorts of objects and hide them throughout the library in plain sight (so there is no need to pull books off the shelves, etc), make lists of items for participants to find and check off and then stand back and watch them search!

We have done different variations of this – sometimes everything hidden is part of a theme (bugs, for instance) or sometimes we have made a “book” out of the hunt with each “page” being a different area of the library, including immediately outside the building and sometimes we just hide an unrelated conglomeration of stuff! We vary the difficulty of the hiding places – invariably the items we think will be hard for them to find are spotted immediately and vice versa – so that just about any age level can play; for the very youngest I will make picture clues for them to “read”. Of course, we always have to end with a “reward”…usually, that is simply the snack. Kids love it…and so do I!