What’s in the Tot Workbox today?  
                    
                            Some really cool word puzzles.

I found this neat box of word puzzles for $7 at a local store.  



 It comes with 26 word puzzles, one for each letter of the alphabet.  It has both the upper and lower case letter side by side, and then a picture, and then a word in lower case letters at the bottom.



Today we started off with 6 of the puzzles, or one sheet.  They come in a sheet and you punch them out to get started.  No sense in mom having all the fun.  The tots wanted to punch out the puzzles themselves.



Then it was time to start matching.  Even though my three year old daughter doesn’t know how to read yet, she can match pictures very well. 



She made a drum, a baby, a frog, an earth, a violin, and a goat.

The word puzzles were short, and had from 4 to 6 letters, or pieces, to match.



These puzzles have bright colorful pictures, and it was easy to see what matched up.



Even my two year old played with the pieces, but he didn’t quite get the hang of it on his first try.  We will be practicing this “puzzle game” many more times in our workboxes, and it won’t be long before he picks up how to do it.  I will limit him to one puzzle at a time, and that will increase his success.  He loves puzzles, so I am sure he will master this one soon.



This word and matching puzzle will be great practice for several of my kids as they practice fine motor skills, cognitive skills, literacy and learning to read skills.

These puzzles remind me of the Word World program on PBS- Kids.  In the same concept as building a word and a picture at the same time.  I really think this is a beneficial way for children to begin to learn reading.

Oops, the big kids wanted to play too, and mixed the parts from all 26 puzzles together. 



Looks like I have some sorting to do before these go back into our tot workboxes. 



These puzzles are a lot of fun.