I-Spy Colors and Sight and Color Words Bag

I was in search of an activity or busy bag that teaches sight and color words. After searching around the house, I realized I already had all or most of what it takes to make one!

With a little prep work, I had a bag that is:

Simple (not a ton of parts to get lost or confuse young children)

All parts that are small enough to be swallowed or lost are sealed inside *

Colorful

Multi-Sensory 

*I would recommend close supervision for children 3 and under in case they manage to rip it open. 

View from the front of the bag. 

Here are the materials:

A glue gun

White rice

*Optional* Food coloring mixed with Kool-Aid and hot water. Find out more on how to dye rice by clicking here.

Clear pencil pouch with a zipper

Alphabet letters of various colors

Shapes of various colors

Plastic toys of various colors

Dry-Erase marker or grease pencil

Steps:

1.  *Optional* I dyed the rice and added it to the pouch.  Click here to see the directions I used to do this.  This really makes the contents stand out. The white rice is okay for this, but the colored rice did a much better job of highlighting the other colors, in my opinion. 

2.  I put my bits and bobs into the pencil pouch. 

I-Spy Bag Contents

1. Purple Flower

2. Blue Flower

3. Green Flower

4. Pink Flower

5. Orange Square

6. Green Triangle

7. Yellow Lizard

8. Red Snake

9. Black Snake

10. Green Frog

11. Yellow Button

12. Red Letter e

13. Orange Letter m

14. Yellow Letter n

15. White Letter o

16. Blue Letter q

17. Pink Letter k

18. Green Letter 

19. Purple Letter r

20. White Letter f

3.  *Optional for older children or emerging readers* Print up the list and attach it to the bag and seal it using packing tape on both sides of the paper.  Punch a hole in the corner of the paper and attach the list to one of the holes already in the bottom of the pouch using a small binder ring. You could also laminate the list if the packing tape is too slick to write on.  The tape/laminate makes it a perfect surface for either a dry-erase crayon/marker or a grease pencil. That comes in handy for marking off what has already been found in the bag. 

4.  Finally, I sealed the zipper shut with a thick line of hot glue. 

Viola!  You've got yourself an almost-instant educational busy bag or station activity!

Do you use I-Spy bags or bottles?  I'm interested in learning how you put them to use for fun and learning!