Family Jigsaw

Sorting out the family tree can sometimes be a puzzle, so why not make a real puzzle out of it by creating a jigsaw? The design can be your very own, but for starters you might want to draw a family “tree” and place pictures of family members on their respective “branches.”

Have the completed chart photographed, mount the whole picture on heavy cardboard, and then use a jigsaw or a very sharp knife to cut around the various people on the chart. (Relatives could be labeled—i.e., Aunt Maude, Grandfather Oldham—before you cut them out.) Then assemble the puzzle again and set it in a cardboard framework with a backing similar to toy puzzles now on the market.

The whole point of this exercise is to let the children assemble the puzzle, and in the process familiarize themselves with their progenitors.

The same idea with immediate members could be used as a Christmas greeting card. An eight-by-ten inch photograph in black and white or color could comfortably include as many as twenty people. Be sure to pose the group so that you can cut around the edge of each figure in the picture to make the puzzle pieces. A side benefit is that this photo-puzzle also becomes a record of one year in a family’s growth. Charlotte Mitchell, Murray, Utah