How to Create Kids' Puzzles
Creating a kid's puzzle only takes a few minutes, and if you use the right picture your child will play with it for many hours. Assembling puzzles teaches spatial skills, logic skills and patience. Working on puzzles with your children teaches them how to engage in cooperative, noncompetitive activities with others.
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Things You'll Need
- Picture large enough for your child to manipulate comfortably. As your child ages, you can use smaller and smaller pictures. Family photographs, Christmas cards and children's drawings are all good choices. Sheet of very heavy cardboard the size of your picture Clear contact paper White, nontoxic glue Very sharp craft knife Heavy book larger than your picture
Instructions
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Making a Child's Puzzle
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1
Apply white glue evenly to the back of the puzzle picture and place it on the sheet of cardboard which is slightly larger than the picture. It is important to distribute the glue evenly across the entire surface because you don't want the edges of the picture to lift up when you cut the picture and board into puzzle pieces.
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2
Stack a heavy book on top of the photo to press it down evenly over its entire surface. Leave the book unmoved for 24 hours.
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3
Apply clear contact paper to the surface of the photo to create a clear plastic barrier that protects the image. Smooth the contact paper carefully to ensure there are no air bubbles.
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4
Flip the picture over to reveal the cardboard. Place it on a surface you can cut into or gouge without concern. Use the craft knife to carefully cut the cardboard and picture into pieces. Make sure each cut passes through the cardboard, the photo and the contact paper. Experiment with creating different types of shapes. Wavy pieces, straight pieces, geometric shapes, even letters make good puzzle components.
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5
Take the pieces of the puzzle and put them in a bag or a box. Puzzles make good gifts for small children, great gifts for parents with children, and useful gifts for schools and churches.
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Tips & Warnings
You can create wood puzzles using the same technique, but it requires that you use a jigsaw to cut the pieces and wood pieces must be sanded to eliminate splinters. Using maps of your state, country or the world as puzzle pictures to teach geography. Use numbers as puzzle pictures, then cut the puzzle into the same number of pieces as the number. This is a great way to teach young kids the meaning behind numbers.
Do not use rubber cement in your puzzles because it is toxic. Over time all homemade puzzles will break down and you don't want children exposed to that toxin.
