Michelin I-Spy Spotter Guides - Summer Holiday Fun!

We seem to have done an awful lot of traveling with Lara and Holly in the last year or so.  Time spent in the car with children... it can be trying!  On our recent trip to France we must have spent about 30 hours in the car together; that's a lot of games of I-Spy.  While we were away, Mr. B and I were reminiscing about spotter guides such as the Michelin I-Spy guides that we used to take on holiday as children and then Michelin contacted us to see if we would like to try out some of their current range of books for our forthcoming trip to Cornwall.

The Michelin I-Spy guides are designed for both children and adults.  Each book contains upto 200 photos of places, things or people to spot on your travels.  The topics of the books are really varied from "I -Spy in the aiport" to "I-Spy Dinosaurs".  There are books to cover different aspects of nature, of technology or different parts of the UK.

Each item from the book that you spot earns your child points, you have to record the date that you spotted it and you can choose to add a small note.  The harder to find things score more points.  Once you have earned 1000 points you can write for, or apply online for a spotter's certificate to celebrate your hard work!

To me, the beauty of the I-Spy books is not just that they will keep Lara busy on our next long road trip and holiday away from home.  I'm also looking forward to her challenging herself to find out more about the world around her; the books will encourage Lara to stop and think about the places we visit on our holiday and the natural world around her.  In "I-Spy by the water" there are a number of things that I expect Lara to be able to spot in Cornwall and the fact that each item has both a photo as well as a description means that she can spot them even though she can't yet read.

Lara was also the lucky recipient of an I-Spy Out and About Card set which is a shiny box full of laminated spotting cards.  The set comprises 70 cards which give you a taste of lots of different spotting themes - ours included vehicles, road-signs, nature, trees, birds and a whole lot more!  The box set of cards comes with a spotters notebook so that older children can make notes about the things they have seen and where they saw them.  I think this set is a brilliant thing to take on a holiday as it can be used while traveling and while away.  Lara is EXTREMELY excited about starting her spotting journey and has already been through the set to let me know which things she has seen before.  Holly, meanwhile, just enjoys putting the cards in and out of the box!

Each Michelin I-Spy book costs around £2.50 (a bargain!) and the box set costs around £8.99.