Our children love puzzles.  When our puzzle collection started to grow, we knew we needed a good system to keep them organized.

How to Organize Large Puzzles

Our collection of puzzles started to grow when our children became toddlers.  Most of our puzzles were 12 x 9 wooden ones that needed to be stacked.  One of our favorites is the 10 Piece Magnetic Fishing Puzzle by Melissa and Doug.  It’s a quality puzzle and even comes with it’s own fishing pole.

To store the larger puzzles, we opted for a wire puzzle rack, similar to the ones you see in a preschool classroom or children’s section of a library.  We opted for the Deluxe Wire Puzzle Rack by Melissa and Doug which holds up to 12 puzzles.  We liked it because it can hold smaller puzzles as well as larger ones.

Simple and Inexpensive Storage Solution for Organizing Boxed Puzzles

As our children grew older, their puzzle sizes grew smaller.  The first ones came in small cardboard boxes with 24 pieces.  At first, we kept the puzzles in their original boxes.  This worked fine, until the boxes started to fall apart.  Here’s what we did to solve the problem.

First, we cut out the puzzle picture from the box.

Then, we put the picture of the puzzle in a zip-loc bag, and added all of the pieces to the bag. The picture is visible on one size of the bag, so we can easily find the puzzle we are looking for.

Once all of the puzzles were in a zip-loc bag, we designated one large cube in the bookcase to hold all of the puzzles.  It’s easy for the children to reach.  Cleaning up is super easy for children.  Just put all of the pieces in the zip-loc, and drop the bag in the large cube.

The True Test of a Good Organizational System

You know you have a good system in place once it is put to the test.  One day, our three-year old went to get a puzzle.  When he didn’t come back right away, I went to check on him.  In a matter of two minutes, he managed to open 5 zip-loc bags, and dump the puzzle pieces all over the rug!  At first, I thought I was going to cry.  However, we sat down together, and made piles for each puzzle.  In a matter of 15 minutes, we had everything cleaned up. 🙂

Happy organizing!