I like to tell the children I need their help naming the animals. Therefore, how you introduce this book is important. Because this book is, to my knowledge, only available as a small board book, some older preschoolers may scoff at it as being for babies.I like to use a different voice for each animal.

By using identical phrasing on each page you can invite your children to say it with you: “Are you my mommy?” “No, I’m a _(allow children to name the animal)_, and this is my baby calf.”.This kept my advanced students engaged and learning while still providing review of the standard animal names for my children who were newer to learning English. They hadn’t heard of ducklings, piglets, and calves before. These baby animal names were brand new for my three year olds. Instead, under each flap is a baby to go with the mommy. Mary Murphy doesn’t stop with just the standard farm animals. I found that most of my three year olds were well versed in, and becoming bored of, the typical farm animal names: horse, cow, pig… In fact, many of my two year olds knew them all. Now here’s the part that makes this little board book so fantastic. My two year olds enjoyed naming each farm animal after I opened the flap, while my three year olds were typically able to guess the animal before I opened it. As the puppy asks each hidden animal if they are his mommy, the children try to guess the animal based on visible clues. The storyline – a puppy looking for his mommy – is simple enough for my two year old class to follow and enjoy. Overall, I thought it was a really good book and I would use this book when working with children because 'I Spy' books like this one, can make learning fun and can have some helpful ways of remembering the different types of birds there are.This is currently one of my absolute favourite preschool books.

I would have to say the language in this book is more geared towards like ages 5 and up because there were some words in there that the younger children might not be able to pronounce or understand what they mean. For example, when they showed the picture of the owl, the background of the owl was a night time background which helps children remember that an owl comes out at night.

The illustrations and color in the book were very realistic and the color of the birds even matched the background. I rated the book a 4/5 because I thought the 'I Spy' theme of the book was a good idea because it makes learning fun for children and they can also use their imagination. 'I Spy in the Sky' is a book where you look through a spy hole to discover different types of birds in the sky, based on their characteristics, like color, size, etc. The genre of this book is a picture book intended for young children ages 2 and up.

I Spy in the Sky by Edward Gibbs