This morning Big Sis was working on a project out of her Thomas magazine.  It was a cutting activity with all the different pieces of Thomas and then you glued on all the pieces to make a train.  Little Sis was feeling a little left out, but she isn’t proficient with scissors yet.  Then I had an idea!  Every magazine has a pull-out poster of Thomas and other trains, and we never do anything with it.  So I cut it out and made my own puzzle pieces out of it.  Then Little Sis could glue them together to make her own Thomas.  (Don’t ask me why she is dressed as a zebra today.)

Here is the finished product.  She couldn’t be convinced to turn the bottom piece around so that the tracks would be on the bottom.  Long ago, I learned you can’t reason with a two-year-old, so I let it be.

Making your own puzzle pieces would be easy to do with any large magazine or calendar picture.  In fact, I’ve already made puzzles with calendars but I used the traditional puzzle piece shapes.  I think I like this way better.