Hobbies And Interests
Christmas Puzzles
Christmas is filled with bright and colorful images and ideas for puzzles. Use the Christmas Fantasy Land online images for a puzzle provided by the website Logicville. Or, you might like to draw a chart of a variety of Christmas gifts, which children can color before solving their own brightly colored puzzle. Give each child a collection of "gifts" in different colored wrapping paper, following the online or homemade chart. Wrap small gifts, such as Christmas candy, ornaments or dollar store toys. Refer to the online image to guide what combination of gifts are equal in value. For example, according to the chart, one red and two blue Christmas gifts equal two green gifts. Children may exchange their gifts as long as the gifts are equal in value. After playing with the puzzle, invite children to open their gifts. You also can try to solve a Christmas crossword puzzle filled with popular Christmas ideas and images. CrosswordPuzzleGames.com provides a Christmas crossword with clues including "left out with milk for Santa" and "reindeer with a red nose."
Thanksgiving Puzzles
Crypto-puzzles provide entertainment for puzzle fans. Crypto-puzzles are made up of a chart with rows of images. Puzzle solvers refer to the chart of codes and alphabet just above the puzzle. For example, a Thanksgiving crypto-puzzle might include images such as turkeys, horns of plenty and pumpkin pie. Each image, or set of images, substitutes for a letter of the alphabet. A slice of pie and a Pilgrim hat, for example, might represent the letter "A." Your Thanksgiving crypto-puzzle will supply images forming a holiday-related word or phrase. Find the hidden Thanksgiving message in a Thanksgiving-oriented crypto-code riddle by placing the letters above the images to which they correspond. The solved puzzle phrase might read "We are grateful for family and a full Thanksgiving table." Make your own holiday crypto-puzzle on the computer using Thanksgiving clip art images.
Easter Puzzles
Word searches keep puzzle fans busy finding all the Easter words. Create your own word search puzzle, using secular Easter ideas, such as "Easter eggs," "rabbit," "baby chicks" and "Sunday." Employ a religious Easter theme including words such as "Jesus," "Last Supper," "Resurrection" and "tomb." The website Creativity Portal offers full-page Easter word search puzzles.
Halloween Puzzles
Halloween invites puzzle fans to solve mysteries filled with ghoulish images and colors. Gather the children around the family table laden with snacks and an old-fashioned, hands-on Halloween jigsaw puzzle. Your home will fill with laughter as the family tries to find the right fit for puzzle pieces. Make the puzzle even more challenging: don&'t look at the completed image on the box.