Introduction

Pictures are an important part of Sunday School teaching.  It is important for children to be able to visualize the scenes, characters, and events of the Bible stories.   They do not yet have the abstract thinking skills and experience base to imagine the ancient world.

This web-page-based puzzle applet, written in JavaScript, provides an excellent teaching aid for Sunday morning.  It can be adapted to any story by choosing appropriate pictures; it helps the child focus attention on detail in the picture as she solves the puzzle; it has the added attraction of using computer technologyl and besides, it's just plain fun.

I used the puzzle page with a unit on the life of Joseph, as an early-arrival activity.   As you can see above, a group of five children were quickly engaged in taking turns solving the puzzle and giving one another advice.  It only took about a minute of explaining the puzzle to the children to get them started.

Try the Puzzle Page

First, note that you must be using a fourth-generation browser that supports Dynamic HTML, JavaScript 1.2, and image subsetting. Suitable browers are Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 or Netscape Navigator 4 (both available for free download).

Give it a try!  Here are the instructions:

1. Select the picture you want to solve.
2. Choose how many pieces you want to work with (start with the default 3X3)
3. Hit the BREAK button to scatter the image parts acround the page
4. Drag and drop individual pieces to their correct place on the original picture.
   (You don't have to get it exactly right--come close and the piece will snap into place when you drop it.)
5. You'll know when you're right because the piece will blink
6. You'll know when you finish the picture--the whole picture will blink
7. Try it again with a different picture or number of pieces.

Using the Puzzle Page in your class

The puzzle applet is based on JavaScript and Dynamic HTML.  It is a free download written by Peter Belesis I obtained from WebReference.com, an outstanding technical source.  I made a few modifications to make the code more stable and changed the pictures to derive the Puzzle Page.

To use the Puzzle Page in your own Sunday School:

1. Download the file puzzle.zip (209 KB) and unzip it into its own directory.
2. You may replace the pictures with your own image files (.JPG or .GIF) by editing the file index.htm.  Simply replace the file names (jospeh1.jpg through balloon.jpg) and the corresponding picture captions.  Feel free to modify other parts of the file.   You may have more or fewer images in the list if you desire.  Don't forget to place your new image files in the directory with the Puzzle files.
3. Now simply open the index.htm file with your browser, stand back, and watch your class have a great time learning!

Note: The picture of Joseph and his brothers used in the Puzzle Page was scanned from Bible Discoverers Teacher, Fall 1998 edition, copyright 1998 by The Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention; all other pictures are public domain