Sunbleached Alphabet and Shape Puzzle

I was inspired to make this Sunbleached Alphabet and Shape Puzzle after reading the post by S.B. of, S.B. Creatively, she took advantage of the summer sun to create a mat where her kids practiced letter identification.

Sunbleached Alphabet and Shape Puzzle

Sunbleached Alphabet and Shape Puzzle

We adapted it to create a few puzzles for my youngest. We created one with alphabet and letter magnets and another with different shaped blocks from around the house. It was so fun! 

Sunbleached Alphabet and Shape Puzzle

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How to Make a Sunbleached Alphabet and Shape Puzzle

  • You need construction paper. The cheaper the better. I used high quality art paper the first time and it didn’t bleach well.
  • A sunny day. Being in Texas, we have lots of those!
  • Shapes (alphabet magnets, blocks, coins, etc.)

Sunbleached Alphabet and Shape Puzzle

I love how the block shapes helped my toddler work on early geometry skills. It was fun watching her rotate the blocks to try and replicate the image. We hope your kids enjoy puzzle making!

Thanks to Nicole of Activity Mom for sharing this post with us!

More Fun Summer Activities 

Leave a comment: Did your kids have a blast with this fun summer activity?

15 Comments

  1. What a super cool idea! Now, what can I use this with. I currently only have the Leap Frog letters…….

  2. This is a great idea. We just saw an episode of Sid the Science Kid about sunscreen. They painted pictures on the paper with sunscreen and then left it in the sun.

  3. Target has construction paper on sale this week. Now I’m all set! Love this idea!

  4. Ticia, you can cut out letters from a cardboard cereal box. We did that this summer for another activity.

  5. JDaniel4's Mom says:

    This looks so cool. I definitely had the bright sun to do this activity.

  6. Thanks, great idea! How long did you leave your paper out to develop?

    1. We left put the paper out before lunch time and got it before nap time, so maybe 3 hours at the most. We did it once with higher quality art paper and it didn’t work, but the off-brand paper work marvelously. I liked the results with red paper more than with the other colors (only that puzzle got crumpled during the picture taking process). Hope you have fun sun-bleaching! I’m going to try using sunscreen next after the comments left by one of the other participants.

  7. This is such a truly great idea! Thrifty as can be- and could not be simpler. Like literally could not be simpler!! lol.

    Love it!

  8. What a great idea. I live in the Middle East, so this could be a virtually year round activity for us! I’m going to try it with some initial sound blends (sh ch, th)

  9. What a great idea!! I teach our the pre-k at our homeschool co-op and have been looking for something to do for them to work on over the summer and I think this is perfect and easy and wont break our budget!!!!!

  10. If you don’t happen to have letters, you can get foam bath letters at Toys R Us for cheap! There are also, the small foam type in craft store with the peel and stick backs, leave the peel on and reuse them for something else or use the darkened area as a shadow and stick the letters on offset from the darkened area.

  11. When you taking a look at building a shed you really need quite a few outdoor shed plans

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