DIY: Pizza box textured puzzles

Every so often, I spend a weekend making new games and activities for my class to explore. The problem is, once I start making some of these games, I end up with partially completed “works-in-progress” all over my house. I start on the dining room table, then when I run out of space there, I head to the kitchen table or the floor or where ever there is another space…

This game making session included painting some pizza boxes that were donated to me by our local Noblesville Pizza King. I used acrylic paint to paint the boxes bright colors and used some of the boxes to make pizza box puzzles…

After painting the boxes, I hot glued blank craft puzzle frames to the boxes. These boxes were the perfect size for the craft puzzle frames that I hot glued both on top and inside the boxes…

I used the inside of the pizza boxes to store the textured puzzle pieces I made. To make the textured puzzles, I hot glued scraps of different materials or objects to the puzzle pieces….

Craft puzzles are available at most craft stores but the type of puzzle will vary in size and number of pieces. I purchased my craft puzzles from our local United Arts and Education but you can also find craft puzzles at Amazon: Inovart Puzzle-It Blank Puzzles 12 Piece 5-1/2″ x 8-1/2″ – 24 Pieces Per Package…

I wanted the puzzles to have different textures for the children to feel and explore as they put the puzzles together. I used sand paper, fabric, cotton balls, pompoms, bubble wrap, lids, Styrofoam, felt, sponges, and straws for this set of puzzle pieces…

This is the kind of game that I will add to our puzzle center for the children to explore in different ways for awhile. I introduced the puzzles to the children today by just setting them out on the table to check out on their own…

I started out with eight puzzle pieces in each box but this confused the children so we narrowed down to four pieces in each box  - I will add the other pieces later when the children are ready for a more complex process…

We will also use the puzzle pieces at other times, like circle time, to discuss texture and for counting games…

The more open ended the homemade game is, the more uses you can find for it in the classroom…

By the way, these puzzle pieces are all the same shape so they fit together in any box.

Click here to learn more about Deborah's Children's CD

www.teachpreschool.org

Copyright 2011 © Deborah J. Stewart

All Rights Reserved!

Please do not sell, post, curate, publish, or distribute all or any part of this article without author's permission! However you are invited to share a link to this post on Pinterest, Facebook, and other social networking sites.

Tagged as: DIY, pizza boxes, puzzles and games, Sensory Play, texture