Fun with Matchstick Puzzles for Multiple Ages {Free Printables}

Matchstick puzzles are awesome math challenges … great for critical thinking and creativity. And brain teasers like matchstick puzzles are just fun (even for adults). But I don’t like the idea of having matchsticks readily available for young children. Spielgaben to the rescue! Today, I have ideas for using matchstick puzzles for multiple ages by using Spielgaben wooden sticks instead of matchsticks.

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Spielgaben. All opinions are honest and my own. This post also contains affiliate links (at no cost to you).

In case you’re not familiar with Spielgaben toys, they are exceptionally high-quality educational toys designed for ages 3-12. You can see from the photo that the cabinet is very high quality and fits in well in a room with traditional Montessori materials. I love the new, easily removable drawers in version 4. The yarn balls from the 1st Spielgaben set can be used with babies and toddlers, too.

The Spielgaben complete set comes with over 700 pages of full-color printed learning materials. These printed materials help you as a parent or teacher easily use Spielgaben toys educationally with your child and/or students.

Spielgaben Materials Used in This Post

I used sticks from the Spielgaben wooden sticks (set 8), which you can purchase separately if you have the latest version. I love the wooden sticks, so it’s nice to have both versions of sticks. Spielgaben rods from  Version 4 would also work.

I’ll link to free printables which will help make the activities simple to prepare yet attractive. I’ll also tell you where I found the materials for my activities.

Note: The yarn balls in set 1 are fine for babies and toddlers. The other sets should only be used with ages 3 and older unless your toddler no longer mouths objects or you are constantly supervising your toddler during an activity using the materials.

Matchstick Puzzles with Spielgaben Wooden Sticks (Design Building for Preschoolers)

Since it could be dangerous to have matchsticks available for young children, I used the 3″ Spielgaben sticks. I used the 12 red sticks, which give me the impression of fire. If you want to use designs that require more than 12 sticks, you could just give your child the 3″ sticks in a variety of colors or use a mixture of the 3″ red and orange sticks.

(Note: I used a  Montessori Services basket with a large bamboo condiment cup for the wooden sticks.)

Free Matchstick Puzzles

For the puzzles in the photos, I used free matchstick puzzles from Puzzles to Print.

They have a number of different levels:

• #1 (easy puzzles … shown in my first puzzle)
• #2 (intermediate puzzles … with 2 in my basket)
• #3 (more challenging matchstick puzzles)
• #4 (difficult puzzles … shown in the fish puzzle)
• #5 (triangle matchstick puzzles)

There are a number of other helpful sites with free matchstick puzzles. Here are some you might like to try:

• matchstick puzzles from Matchstick Puzzles (a huge collection)
• matchstick puzzles from Puzzles.com
• matchstick puzzles from MathSphere

Easy through Difficult Matchstick Puzzles for Multiple Ages {Free Printables}

I love that this type of activity can be used for multiple ages in a homeschool or for after-school or summer learning at home. Older children can solve the puzzles while preschoolers can simply build the designs from the cards using the wooden sticks. Preschoolers might like to identify the shapes as well. They could also count shapes.

This is an example of one of the easier puzzles.

And the solution. (I just printed out the puzzle page and cut apart the puzzles. Then I cut around the solution and glued it to the back of the card.) This could be used at a table or on a rug on the floor. (I always use Montessori Services rugs for floor work.)

A classic matchstick puzzle and one of the more difficult ones.

And the solution. As you can see, there are so many great thinking skills at work with these!

UPDATE:

All My Spielgaben Posts

Many of these include links to free printables! (Click on an image to go to the related blog post. The gallery is ordered according to publication date with my latest post at the top.)

Version 4 of Spielgaben Educational Toys 

I highly recommend Spielgaben as an amazing educational material for home or school. Even though the toys aren’t inexpensive, they’re definitely worth the price because of the high quality of materials and number of years your children or students can use them.

Special deal for my readers!