Dot puzzles

I saw this done with Christmas cards and decided it would be a good way to reuse old calendars!

I used a local art calendar and cut off the picture from December.  When I went to punch holes with a larger scrapbook puncher I realized why Christmas cards were ideal.  The calendar page was too big, I could only punch holes around the edges.



No problem!  After that I just cut smaller pictures from the calendar before punching.  I found that four dots was just about right for Chiquita, not too hard to discourage her but still took a little bit to finish
.  I picked pictures that I could get four pretty different punches from (different colors, different faces).

Circles were a little harder than other shapes would have been since getting them exactly right took a little more rotating.  For older kids landscapes could be a great challenge to match the holes exactly right.

I just used these once and then recycled them since the calendar was headed to the recycling bin anyhow, but there's lots of ways you could make these more durable.  Most calendars are a little thicker so as is, they could last a while as is.  I considered adding packaging tape to the backs of the circles and the empty circles for a sticky game - the tape on the back of the circles would let you remove them.  You could also paste the main picture on a piece of paper, laminate everything and add velcro for a very durable busy bag type game.