The Imagination Tree

Creative play and learning for kids

  • Home
  • Start here!
  • Welcome
    • About Me
    • Popular Posts
    • Play Challenge
    • Subscribe
  • Age
    • Baby
    • Toddler
    • Preschooler
    • School Age
  • Activities
    • Literacy
    • Numeracy
    • Creativity
    • Physical
    • PHSE
    • Science
  • Resources
    • Spaces
    • Toys
    • Books
  • Contact
  • Kindness Elves

Phonics I-Spy Discovery Bottle

November 1, 2013 by Anna Ranson

Make a phonics I-Spy discovery bottle for hours of playful literacy fun at home, in the classroom or even when travelling! A great activity for learning beginning letter sounds and matching phonemes to graphemes, for preschoolers to school age kids.Phonics I-Spy game

There’s been a lot of emphasis in our home recently on learning letter sounds and beginning to sound out small words to read and write independently. The girls are often able to play together and yet use the activity to reach their own independent goals at their own level of ability, which makes me very happy.

I love making resources for them which can be played with and reused  any times and that use simple materials from around the home. We have a whole collection of homemade toys, games and resources here that you can check out, to see what we have made so far.

Phonics I spy game objects

We have made some sets of Baby and Toddler Discovery bottles before, and this time I put together a Phonics Discovery bottle for them to play an I-Spy game at home and when we are out and about, as it is completely self-contained and portable.

I went on a hunt for little objects around the house beginning with each letter of the alphabet and that were small enough to fit through the next of the bottle I had collected. (For UK readers, this is a large Innocent juice bottle, which is nice and spacious for this type of activity!) Many of them are from Playmobil sets, as well as lots of other bits and pieces I’ve picked up along the way (I’m a miniature-things-hoarder so that helps!)

Once I’d found them all I laid them out and took a photo of everything before it went into the bottle, then printed this image out A4 size for them to use as their guide when they played. I’ve now laminated this so it will last for future games too.

Playing phonics I-spy game

Next I simply popped the objects into the bottle and added 1/3rd full of dry, coloured rice (still saved and reused from this Golden Cinnamon sensory tub from last Christmas! See this post to see how to dye the rice.) Then the lid was sealed (you can use a glue gun or super-glue) and the contents were shaken to hide them a little.

IMG_6416

I quickly wrote out the alphabet and chopped it into small cards and let them choose which one they wanted to start with. Then they had to say the sound out loud (the sound/ phoneme, rather than the letter name/ grapheme) and begin their search for it in the bottle.

Here is this example you can see Pop selecting the letter “m”. She said “mmmmmmm” then searched on the photo sheet for an object beginning with that letter (for some sounds I used a few objects, to increase the number in the bottle.) She chose the moon, then she shook and turned the bottle until she found it and pointed it out.Phonics I-spy discovery bottle game

Cakie enjoyed playing the game at this level too, even though she is confident in all her letter sounds. There is plenty of fun simply playing this as an I-spy game! She wanted to do more with it though, and decided to try and write down the name of everything she had found in a list, sounding it out as she did so. Another way to play this would be to provide word cards for each object contained in the bottle for beginning or more confident readers to pick out a card at random and then read it and look for that object to find. That is where we will take this game next with Cakie when she is keen to play it again.Hide and seek phonics bottle game

I can’t wait to take this with us on our next journey or when we go to an appointment in the future as it’s sure to be a great boredom buster!

What else could you make? I love the possibility of discovery bottles!

If you liked this idea you will love looking through our Playful Literacy collection here!

Check out our Literacy Pinterest Board too

Cakie: 5.2

Pop: 3.7

Bean: 1.8

 

Related Posts

  • Alphabet Cups on the Light Box
  • Alphabet Sounds Fishing and Matching game
  • Alphabet Rocks Construction Site Activity
  • Alphabet Jump and Write on the Trampoline
  • Alphabet Shells Playful Literacy GamesAlphabet Shells Playful Literacy Games
  • Moon Dust Sensory Writing Tray

Filed Under: Age, Alphabet, Discovery Bottle, DIY, Learn, Letters, Literacy, Make, Preschooler, Recycled Crafts, Resources, School Age, Sounds, Toys & Games Tagged With: Alphabet, Early Literacy, Phonics, Playful Literacy

« Digging for Dinosaur Bones Maths Game
12 Creative Storytelling Activities »

Comments

  1. morah says

    November 1, 2013 at 1:35 pm

    love the discovery bottle. Can’t wait to try it on my Pre-K class.

  2. Ellie says

    November 1, 2013 at 6:19 pm

    I love the idea of doing this in a bottle! Have you considered taping or otherwise covering most of the bottle and leaving a ‘window’, for more advanced users? Though, since you can’t manipulate the bottle as you could a fabric pouch, maybe that would make it too tricky… You’ve inspired me to get out my unfinished I-Spy pouches that I was making for my son and niece, and get them finished for Christmas!

  3. Lucy says

    November 4, 2013 at 11:43 pm

    Love this – thank you! Bought the value rice and Innocent juice today (!) and have been collecting tiny things for a couple of days. Did you have something for every single letter? I’m struggling with a couple of them!

  4. Sarah says

    November 6, 2013 at 8:53 am

    Please write a book… You are really inspirational.

  5. Ynes says

    November 22, 2013 at 10:11 pm

    Where can I find the miniatures? That can get pretty expensive. I want to do this for my grandson who is 20 months old.

  6. Ynes says

    November 22, 2013 at 10:13 pm

    Sorry,! I did not click on notify me of follow-up comments by email.

  7. Natalie Jackson says

    March 14, 2014 at 7:11 pm

    Forgot to click “Notify me of follow-up comments” Oops!
    Hope to hear from you soon!
    Thank you!

  8. Mars M. says

    March 26, 2014 at 3:10 am

    It looks so fun to prepare and to do that I’d want to have a go at it myself! 🙂 Thanks for this! 🙂

    Mars M.
    http://www.montessoriinmars.blogspot.com

Trackbacks

  1. rainbow rice - happy hooligans - dying rice - how to colour rice says:
    February 22, 2014 at 2:47 pm

    […] gorgeous when it’s all mixed up, and you can use it in future for toddler art projects, educational discovery bottles for preschoolers, and to make rainsticks and […]

The Imagination Tree on FacebookThe Imagination Tree on TwitterThe Imagination Tree on PinterestThe Imagination Tree on G+RSS feed from The Imagination TreeThe Imagination Tree straight to your inbox

Search The Imagination Tree

About The Imagination Tree Hello and welcome! I'm Anna, Mama of 4, early years teacher and play enthusiast from the UK! Click here to read more about me.

The Kindness Elves Store
Play Ideas on The Imagination Tree

Create with The Imagination Tree

Makes on The Imagination Tree

Sign up for our FREE emails:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Categories

Archives

Copyright © 2023 · Foodie Pro Theme by Shay Bocks · Built on the Genesis Framework · Powered by WordPress

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.Accept Read More
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT