Puzzles have many benefits for kids but there is one important skill they don’t teach… creative thinking!
While puzzles help develop skills such as hand eye coordination and fine motor skills it does not help foster creativity.
Creativity is essential to your child’s future success. Along with innovation, creativity is considered a top skill needed for future employees in the 21st Century workplace.
While my little ones still have years to go before they are in the workforce, it is never to early to encourage problem solving and creative thinking.
Creative thinking is a skill that can be nurtured… and the best way is with play!
This activity takes an old puzzle and transforms it with child led creative play.
Read the tutorial below to see how we created our own diy floating race track by turning an old puzzle into fun creative water play. We also incorporated a bit of science as we experimented to see which cars float and which cars sink.
This activity was inspired by my five year old, Lil B.
At his preschool, he had a water center that had a floating race track.. He enjoyed playing with it so I presented him the challenge of figuring out how we could build our own.
Materials
Foam Puzzle
Permanent Markers
Water Table (or plastic container filled with water – which is what we do)
Plastic cars and trucks
Tutorial
Step 1: Put the puzzle together.
Step 2: Flip the puzzle over and take out the middle pieces.
Step 3: Using the permanent markers, draw a race track and any other details your child wishes.
Lil B added parking spots and a “pit” for the race track. We also used the middle puzzle pieces as additional floating parking spots.
Step 4: Place your race track in the water and play!
Step 5: Turn your creative play into a STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math) learning opportunity by experimenting with which cars float and which ones sink.
Stretch your child’s thinking with open-ended questions.
Why do you think certain cars floated and others sank?
What else do you think will float?
What else do you think will sink?
Encourage your child search for other objects that they think will float or sink.
If you enjoy this activity be sure to check out more STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math) activities:
Want even more ideas and activities to nurture creative thinking?
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