Where can you find wordsearch puzzles with your children’s names in them? Where can you look for a crossword puzzle with the names of places you plan to go on your upcoming vacation? If you are willing to spend just a few minutes, you can create your own personalized puzzles. And if you are planning a vacation, the puzzles can be given to the children on a long road trip. Well designed puzzles can serve as teaching tools that have them thinking about where they are going, and can whet their appetites to learn more once they arrive. Wordsearch puzzles can also help the names of things they are learning about stick in their minds better.

Word searches, crossword puzzles, and a variety of other word puzzles can be created on the www.puzzlemaker.com website. Making a word search is as easy as writing a list of words and thinking of an appropriate title. The web site does the rest so you can print it out along with the key in case you get stuck trying to find  some of the words. The puzzle in the picture was created instantly from this simple list of words I created. (ALLIGATORS, AQUARIUM, AUNTSUE, BEACH, CAMPING, FLIPFLOPS, NANA, OCEANLAKES, SAND, SANDPIPERS, SEAFOOD, WORSHIP.) The sky is the limit on what you can include in your puzzles – as long as there is room for all the letters to fit.

Criss-Cross puzzles are great for a review of what you saw and learned on a trip or special activity. Criss-Cross puzzles are a type of crossword puzzle that can be made on the PuzzleMaker website. To make these, enter the answer words that will go into the puzzle followed by the clue on the same line. Again, once you have completed your information for the puzzle, PuzzleMaker will create your puzzle within seconds. It is possible that there will be a word that can’t be put into the puzzle. If the word is really important, you might need to replace one of the other words or add new words that include some of the letters in the rejected word.

Jigsaw puzzles are fun too. Though these are worked on the computer, it is also possible to do them on an iPhone or other portable device that connects to the Web. You can make computer picture puzzles at www.jigzone.com/. Here is one I made from a picture I took of an osprey feeding her young chick.

There are more types of puzzles offered on www.PuzzleMaker.com than the two I mentioned, and there are other places on the Web available for making jigsaw puzzles. Some will let you send your picture and order a traditional jigsaw puzzle that will come in your mail box. I haven’t tried this yet, but think it would be a great way to memorialize a great vacation.

Put you puzzle-making thinking cap on and see what new kinds of entertainment you can create for your family this summer.

Written by Janice D. Green, author of The First Christmas and The Creation.