Benefits of Using Puzzles in the Library

Benefits of puzzles

Do you use puzzles in your library or classroom? Puzzles are useful for supporting fine motor skills, as kids manipulate the pieces into place. They also help with visualizing. I always had a table of students share puzzles, rather than work on them alone. As children work together on a puzzle, they use the social emotional skills of working as a team, having patience, waiting their turn. Some of my puzzles are just for fun. The kids get excited as the picture emerges. Others reinforce academic skills, such as puzzles for rhyming words, matching letters or counting numbers.

Older students could assemble puzzles of the continents or United States, or other academic image.

A fun type of puzzle is sound puzzles (yes, yes, I know it’s supposed to be quiet in the library, but with interactive educational activities going on, my room is often the noisiest in the school!) Here is a blog post I wrote about sound puzzles:

Be Noisy in the Library: Sound Effect Puzzles

Digital Puzzles

Ever since Covid, students have not been sharing materials as much. Your students can still use digital puzzles though. They have some of the same benefits. Students can work together on a computer or tablet without touching the puzzle. They still have to exhibit patience, as the puzzle comes together. Several websites allow you to create your own puzzles. One is Jigsaw Planet. You can choose the number of pieces and even shape of the pieces. Some digital escape room activities use one of these puzzles as a clue to open one of the “locks” and break out. I created this puzzle with a detective image and the word “Mystery.” Students would solve the clue, “What genre is this” after completing the puzzle.

Here is a brief video tutorial about Jigsaw Planet.

Mystery Puzzle Pictures in BOOM

Have you ever used BOOM Cards™? They are digital task cards played on the BOOM Learning website. Students answer questions by selecting from multiple choice answers, dragging and dropping an answer, or typing it in. BOOM cards are self-correcting. Correct answers get circled in green and incorrect answers get crossed out in red, allowing students to guess again. Some BOOM Card decks have mystery puzzles that are slowly revealed as the students answer the questions. You can buy this deck on my Teachers pay Teachers site. I also have other mystery puzzles. What Color Is the Fish?

Once again, there are puzzle pictures for older students, such as this one about the solar system, Solar System Picture Progression.

Some Google Slides games also feature puzzles. In this Superhero Character Traits slide deck, one set of questions results in a puzzle being completed. Buy it here: Superhero Character Traits.

Finally, there are even puzzles about libraries! Some feature book covers, or interiors of classic libraries. These are for adults, as they have 1,000 pieces! (Now, that would keep my kindergarteners busy for a long, long time!)