Ways to Organize Reading Center Puzzles
My favorite part of reading center puzzles is the student engagement and enjoyment of practicing the literacy skill. My least favorite part… all of the little pieces. The inevitable end up on the floor, slipping under a filing cabinet, never to be seen again, or even worse, separated from their group!
A puzzle with a missing piece is just frustrating and confusing for your students. I want to share a few tips today for how you can organize, store, and support your students using puzzle activities.
Why I use puzzle activities in reading centers:
It is important for students to get practice reading text on paper. As teachers, we strive to make our reading activities interactive and engaging. As a result, we often try to stay away from a printed worksheet of plain text. However, puzzles are an amazing way for students to practice reading this “plain text” but in a FUN way!
Puzzles offer a natural problem solving element to an activity. Students are practicing deductive reasoning, analyzing shapes, and assessing situations from various points of view.
It is easy to reuse puzzle activities over and over! If you know me, you know I am all about repurposing and reusing! You can change up how many puzzle pieces are given to the students or if a time constraint is used on the reading station activity. You can make slight tweaks to keep an activity for a specific reading skill in rotation ALL YEAR!
Ways to Organize!
1. Storage of Reading Center Puzzles
The most important part of your puzzle storage is that it MUST seal closed.
The second thing you need to take into account is the size of the puzzle pieces.
My favorite way to store literacy activity puzzles are beautiful colored storage boxes!
Another method that is not as bulky to store and manage is plastic or mesh zipper bags. I find that these work better than ziplocs because the material is stronger so it does not rip.
2. Label the container AND the puzzle pieces
Yes! It is important to label every single piece of the puzzles. For example, my puzzles that practice topic, main idea, and supporting detail, I write “Main Idea Set 1” on the backs of all of them. If you make more than one set for multiple students to use, change it to set 2, 3, etc. I know this seems tedious but it is essential to not losing pieces and making it easier on yourself.
3. Procedures for Using and Cleaning Up Puzzle Activities
I am a big advocate for systems and procedures in your classroom to make sure that reading centers and lessons run effectively. The predictability to routines help students to stay focused and be confident in what they need to do.
Read about how I organize my routines and procedures for reading centers here.
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Procedures for opening puzzles
- There should be a number somewhere on the container label or the outside of the puzzle that tells the number of pieces. As soon as students take out the puzzle, they should count and verify that they have the correct number of pieces.
- Puzzles should be completed in a set space such as a desk, table, or lap desk. I have found that puzzles on the carpet or floor, the pieces grow legs and run away.
- Students should know the directions for how to complete, how they will show you their answers, and what to do if they finish early. Read more about how I track my students answers and implement puzzles in this blog post.
Procedure for cleaning up puzzles
- Students should count the puzzles pieces to make sure they have them all.
- Make sure students know how to load the pieces into the container so that they are flat and not bending. I know this sounds silly but you know how when it is time to clean up, shoving pieces as fast as possible becomes the way of the world.
Try these ideas out on my free text feature puzzles!
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