Friday, February 9, 2007

Printable Puzzles: Create Your Own Custom Puzzles!

Depending on the age of the party guests, the party theme, and type of party, it is easy to create printable puzzles to be used at any party. Whether you create a picture find puzzle, where Sesame Street characters are printed onto paper in an interesting Hollywood (Sesame Street) Squares pattern, and in a line below, for smaller children to draw a line connecting one to the other, or word find puzzles for an older Barbie party crowd, printable puzzles are a great activity.

Even at baby showers, printable puzzles can be such fun! Have each guest give you a baby photo. Scan and print sheets with baby pictures, and have a photo identification puzzle to match the baby to the adult.

Create an Acrostic puzzle where the answer to the question is revealed when you name that baby item. For example, you can create a puzzle where the question to solve is, “Who is most excited about the new arrival?” and the questions could be

What starts out white and ends up wet and smelly Diaper
What is used to clean little noses? Aspirator
What is Mommy’s Name? Denise
What is Grandma’s Name? Debbie
Who is taking this Quiz? You!


The answer to the quiz question: “Who is most excited about the new arrival?” is DADDY!!!

Send printable puzzle crosswords as cute invitations. Have questions like: Who sits in front of Bobby Smith in Mrs. Collin’s class? Which girl in my class has long blonde hair, wears glasses, and has a Spongebob backpack? Then, at the bottom, you can print: “The girl with long blonde hair, wearing glasses, who has a Spongebob backpack, wants YOU to come to her birthday party!” and include all the required information. Most teachers love to help with this type activity, and if you contact them ahead of time, they will allow children to complete the puzzles in class during activity time, so if they have any problem, she can help them figure out the answers.

Or make a collage of famous new parents, like Britney Spears, Brad Pitt, Brooke Shields, Catherine Zeta-Jones, or Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, just using photos of their eyes, have a list of the celeb parents’ names, print copies for each guest, and then see how many can guess which eyes belong to which famous, fab parents, for an interesting and fun printable puzzle game!