Here we go again with another great craft stick project! Today we’re making a puzzle! To get started, line up several craft sticks flat on a table. I used another stick to make sure my 5 sticks were lined up well.
Place 2 pieces of masking tape or painters tape across the sticks to hold them together. These are just used temporarily while we are making the puzzle.
Flip the craft sticks over and draw/color a picture on them. I suggest that some of your pictures are on more than one stick so there will be things to match up again when making the puzzle.
Once your picture is complete, remove the tape from the back. Move the sticks around so they are out of order.
Let your kids put the puzzle back together.
Ta dah! Kids will have fun drawing and coloring a picture on the sticks themselves or you can make the puzzle for them. Another idea for making a puzzle with craft sticks is to write the letters of your child’s name on sticks…one letter on each stick…and then let them put the sticks in the right order to spell their name. Great practice for learning how to spell their name!
If your child is just beginning to learn their name, you can add some other little drawings on the sticks that they can use to help match the sticks in the right order and complete the puzzle. In the same way I added the circle, square, triangle and star in my example.
One more puzzle idea that is a little bit harder to craft but just as much fun for your littles to put together, is to use a small picture (I used one from a magazine), cut it in strips and glue it to the sticks. Older kids could enjoy making puzzles this way. Here are the steps I used…find a picture that is just a little bit shorter and the same width as the number of sticks you are using.
I decided to use the same sticks that I used for the name puzzle only using the back sides of the sticks. You can fit 2 puzzles on 1 set of sticks this way. 🙂 Place your picture upside down and lay the coordinating stick on top, then trace with a pencil down the side of the stick.
Make sure to lay the sticks in the right order so that the puzzle on the other side will still fit together. Cut the strip off the picture and glue it to the back side of the first stick.
Lay the next stick in line onto the picture, trace down the side as you did with the first stick, cut the paper strip off and glue it to the back of the second stick.
Continue in the same manner with the rest of the sticks in your puzzle until each stick has a piece of the picture glued to it.
Great job! Now mix up the sticks and let the kids have a go at putting the puzzle together!
I hope you found these ideas interesting and that you and your favorite kids have fun making puzzles together! 🙂 Thanks for stopping by! Tune in tomorrow for some more craft stick fun! 🙂
The Kids Niche 