Have you ever noticed how people have a fascination with solving things?
Crossword puzzles, riddles, Sudoku puzzles, mysteries, and math problems all seem to appeal to our natural desire to seek a solution to a puzzle.
Alright, so maybe math problems aren’t everyone’s favorite type of puzzle, but they’re a puzzle nonetheless. 
Tomorrow is National Puzzle Day! It’s the perfect day to set aside time for you and your family to solve puzzles.
Of course, there are many different ways that you can make this day interesting for your family besides just handing everyone a puzzle. Below are some National Puzzle Day activities that you might want to try to liven up your day a bit. Some are intellectual, some are delectable, some are charitable, and some are whimsical. All will make an otherwise routine day more interesting.
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National Puzzle Day Activities
Puzzles for celebrating National Puzzle Day can be anything from jigsaw puzzles to word puzzles. Here are some activities that you can do with either and much more.
Have a Jigsaw Puzzle Race. Give two or more people jigsaw puzzles with the same number of pieces and let them race to solve them.
Have a Team Jigsaw Puzzle Race. It’s the same as the regular Jigsaw Puzzle Race only teams assemble each puzzle instead of individuals.
Have a Word Puzzle Race. Give two or more people the same word puzzle like a word search and let them race to solve them.
Have a Two Puzzle Challenge. This works best with puzzles that have fewer pieces like our Raggedy Ann or Raggedy Andy Simple Puzzles. Give your child two different puzzles to solve at the same time. Mix the pieces to both puzzles together first. Your child will not only have to figure out how the puzzles go together, but also which pieces belong to which puzzle.
Solve puzzles in wacky places. Let your child go solve a puzzle in a place you normally wouldn’t expect to do so like a tent or tree house. If you live in the arctic north like we do, you might have to pick someplace else that’s warm like a large closet or in a homemade, indoor tent made from a card table and a sheet.
Donate puzzles to charity. If you have puzzles that you aren’t solving anymore, you can donate them to nursing homes, children’s hospitals, or some other needy organizations.
Solve the Rubik’s Cubepuzzle or have a race to solve it. This 3D puzzle goes back to the 1970s. It’s still popular today.
Solve a large jigsaw puzzle as a family. Instead of being competitive, be cooperative and work together to solve a 500-piece or 1000-piece puzzle.
Play a puzzle-type game together. Some possibilities include Jenga,Tetris Link,
Blokus, and Qwirkle.
Design your own puzzle on Zazzle. You can put a family photograph or some other image on a puzzle at Zazzle.com and then buy it.
Let your children make their own word puzzles to share with family members. Possibilities include crosswords, word searches, and cryptograms. Graph paper can be handy for this type of activity.
Let your kids make puzzle hats. Make the standard paper hat from a newspaper and let your children glue on pieces from old puzzles that you don’t want anymore.
Have a puzzle cake. Make a sheet cake. Frost it with one color icing. Use a different color icing in a tube to draw puzzle pieces.
Eat quesadilla puzzles. Make a quesadilla by putting shredded cheese between two tortillas and heating it in the microwave for about 30 seconds. Then use a scissors to cut the quesadilla into pieces of different shapes. Mix up these pieces and give them to your child on a plate to “solve” before eating.
I hope you and your family enjoy National Puzzle Day tomorrow! Let me know which activities you do in the comment section.
Many blessings,
