Sharing the tech-free games of your childhood with your kids

If you put a positive spin on it, physical distancing and staying at home as much as possible kind of feels like a big, long family vacation. (You know, minus the whole working-from-home bit…) Everyone’s spending plenty of quality time together and you’re probably finding yourselves doing more family activities to keep yourselves entertained.

That makes it the perfect time to bring back those “oldie but goodie” games you used to play when you were a kid! Introduce your little ones to some of the creative ways you remember staying occupied back in the day, using nothing but your imagination.

How to play I Spy

This classic game is best known for cutting out the “Are we there yet?!”s on thousands of family road trips over the years. Today, you can use it to help your kids get to know the world around them and to take notice of the little things around your home that they might otherwise take for granted.

For kids who have never played, start by picking out an object within plain view — but don’t tell them what it is.

• Say, “I Spy something blue" (or fill in the blank with whatever characteristic you’d like). The person you’re playing with has to guess what object you spied.


• If you’re only playing with one other person, they can keep guessing until they get it right. If you’ve got a bigger gang, they’ll take turns looking around and guessing.


• The person who guesses right becomes the “spy”: they get to pick the next object and field guesses from everyone else.

Make it a little more challenging

If your kids have mastered the basics, kick things up a notch:

• Limit the number of guesses each person gets.


• Choose smaller, less obvious objects that are more difficult to guess.


• Use the game as an opportunity to practice something your kid is learning. For example, help them learn their shapes by saying things like, “I Spy something that is a circle,” or practice their spelling with things like, “I Spy something that starts with the letter ‘C.’”

We hope you and your family enjoy playing this classic game as much as our campers do at YMCA Day Camps!