My son’s school recently had a Light It Up Blue for Autism Day. Everyone in the school was encouraged to wear blue and the cafeteria served blue food. It was great to see them promote autism awareness!

I had the pleasure of doing a craft activity with my son’s class for that day. We made puzzle piece picture frames.  It was very easy to do and the kids really enjoyed it. Here’s how we did it…

Supplies needed:

• Picture Frame – I prefer wooden frames with wide edges.
• Puzzle Pieces – These can come from an old puzzle or you can buy puzzle pieces that you can draw on.  I chose to use the kind you can draw on. I found them at Michael’s.
• Glue – I used Aleene’s Tacky Glue. It worked wonders and dried pretty quickly after I set each puzzle piece in place.
• Magic Markers – This is to color the puzzle pieces.  I used broad tip markers with the children. If you have more time on your hands, you can use paint.  Paint would also be a good option if you are using puzzle pieces that already have a design on them.

Here’s a pic of the supplies I used:

How to put it all together:

• First, estimate how many puzzle pieces you need. You can do this by laying the pieces on the frame like you would like them to appear.
• Next, decorate your puzzle pieces.  You can color them any way you would like.  My son colored his with the detail of decorative easter eggs.  Some children only used two colors.  Others used a combination of colors.
• After decorating the pieces, lay them on your picture frame.  Make sure the pieces are dry first!  You can choose to organize them in one layer or overlap the puzzle pieces.
• Glue the pieces on the frame.  I would recommend that you glue the bottom layer first without overlapping.  Then, after you have your foundation, start overlapping if you choose to do so.
• After all of the pieces are dry, add your photo to the frame.

Here is a picture of all of the steps!

This project takes about an hour.  It just depends on how detailed you get on decorating the puzzle pieces.

I took pictures of the students in my son’s class and developed them before the end of the day so that the parents would have a picture to go in the frame.  It was pretty cool because everyone had on blue to represent autism awareness in their puzzle piece autism awareness frame!

Here’s a collage of some of the frames the students made!

Try it in your classroom or with your student group.  It was a lot of fun, not only for the students, but for the teachers and I too!