Homemade Puzzle Placemats

What you need

• Paper, 1 large sheet per placemat
• Pencils, 2 or 3
• Crayons or markers, 1 box markers or crayons
• Ruler, 1
• Crayons or markers, 1 crayon per placemat

How to do it

Grown-up prep: Gather big paper, pencils, a ruler and crayons, and clear a table to draw on. Check the ages of the kids who will use the placemats.

1. Pick ten holiday words for your word search.
2. Draw a letter grid and hide your words across, down and diagonally.
3. Fill every empty square with random letters.
4. Draw a maze that leads from a turkey to a pie.
5. Draw two small pictures with five sneaky differences.
   Ask: Which of your five differences do you think will be the hardest to spot?
6. Make each placemat just right for each kid's age.
7. Ask someone to try each puzzle as a test.
8. Set placemats at the kids' table with a crayon on each. What puzzle will you invent next?
   Ask: Which puzzle do you think the other kids will finish first, and what will you make next time?

Play it again

• Swap and solve: trade placemats with another designer and race to finish each other's puzzles.
• Theme switch: make a new set for a birthday, a beach day or a space adventure.
• Timer challenge: give testers two minutes per puzzle and redesign any no one can finish.