Putting the pieces together ...

I am constantly amazed by my two nephews as I watch them grow. I remember the older one who was a pro at leopard crawl for quite a while cuz he just wasn't ready to walk but when he decided to walk, he just got up and walked ... no wobbly steps (well, if he did do the wobble walk, I didn't see it *grins*) but just took rather solid steps! His lil bro recently started walking and he's doing pretty good. Saw him take his few shakey steps but now, he's walking pretty much on his own.

But what I find really amazing is how children take to jigsaw puzzles. I bought Mirza some big simple puzzles when he was a lil younger (about two years old) and he wasn't keen at all. But when he turned three, he just took to them and now loves puzzles. He's working on the 64 pieces floor puzzle and I really enjoy watching him solve the puzzle, especially the new ones cuz I am trying to figure out how kids actually figure it out.

I don't remember my bro and I playing with jigsaw puzzles when we were younger. We used to play 'camping' under the bedsheet, cowboys with our horsie bolsters (and using Mom's plates and cups as we were 'cooking' out in the wild west and playing doctor using our adjustable study desklamp as operating table lights (I remember cutting my my teddies and then stitching them up). I think I even played teacher with my bro being the student with my other toys. Oh yes, not to forget the usually singing duo where my bro and I used skipping ropes as our mikes as we pranced around on my bed.

Back to Mirza and his jigsaw puzzles. He got a new one from me today and I thought it was going to be tough cuz it's 64 floor pieces of antique trains - and there were easily five or six overlapping trains in the picture. Did he bother to look at the picture on the cover of the box? Nope. He just poured the pieces out. The he looked for the common colours, and then shapes. He is able to pick it out so quickly and I had trouble catching up with him. He is somehow able to put the pieces together in his head. And the concentration that he has while doing the jigsaw puzzle is just amazing. And he won't stop until he has finished it all. And then's when we all cheer and give him a round of applause for doing so well. And he just wants more jigsaw puzzles. It took him about 25-30 minutes to complete a 64 piece puzzle if he's doing it for the first time. Hey, for a 3+ year old, that's fantastic by my standards. After he has done it once, he would be able to do it within 10 minutes the next time round.

The brain is amazing, especially a kid's brain and how it works and learns! Now this got me thinking. Now kids go through the puzzles rather quickly and may get bored after awhile. And cuz the puzzles aren't cheap especially if they are good quality or made from durable materiaI. Would parents be open to ideas of renting puzzles (of course, parents would have to ensure that puzzle pieces don't go missing and pieces kept in good condition since it's rented item)? So parents out there, do let me know what you think ....

Anyways, I was curious about the benefits of jigsaw puzzles for kids and googled some and this is what I found so go ahead and take a read. The information is from Best Child Toys. I may not agree about the number of pieces because I think kids these days may be able to handle more pieces but it could also vary with the child. So parents would need to know what their kids are capable of and gradually introduce more pieces rather than try to load the kids with too many too quickly. Thus, idea of renting puzzles make more sense right? *laughs*

Child Jigsaw Puzzle , A Toy with Unlimited Benefit

Let's have a look at how a kid jigsaw puzzle enhances your child's development:

• It improves hand-eye coordination since children will have to fit the jigsaw pieces into the board properly.
• It develops shape/size recognition and matching ability.
• It develops logical thinking.
• It enhances spatial relation skills.
• It develops pre-reading skills by enhancing the ability of children to recognize shapes.
• It develops perseverance attitude since children will have to persevere to be able to complete the child jigsaw puzzle.
• It enhances social skills. Who would not enjoy putting jigsaw pieces together with friends and famiy by the way?
• And ..... you can always use this toy to develop the language skills by talking about the picture of the child jigsaw puzzle.
  

The main thing to consider when choosing a jigsaw puzzle is the age-appropriateness. The toy should be challenging but not too complex it frustrates the child. In this regard there are 3 things which have to be looked at when shopping for child jigsaw puzzles:

• The easiness to match the piece with the hole in the board (for single-piece jigsaw puzzle) or to each other (for more-than-one-piece jigsaw puzzle).
• Number of pieces.
• Durability and ease of handle.

Matching easiness: You can tell the degree of matching easiness by asking these following questions.

• Does the puzzle have pictures on the board as well as on the pieces ?
• Do the pieces have easy-to-distinguished- pictures,for instance, do the jigsaw pieces have pictures of tail, body, head, etc; or do they have pictures of two half body parts ?
• Do the pieces have easy-to-distinguished-shapes ?
• Does the picture of the puzzle contains features which are easily distinguishable ? Kid jigsaw puzzles with a picture of baked beans is very difficult to complete compared to the Winnie-The-Pooh puzzle.
• Does the puzzle have big pieces? The more you answer yes to these questions, the easier the degree of matching is.

Number of pieces: Although important, I always think that shape, size and picture of the jigsaw puzzle are more important than the number of pieces per se in determining what kind of puzzle you should buy for your child. Nevertheless, use the followings as a rule of thumb on the number of jigsaw pieces your child can handle:

Toddler (1-2 years): 1-2 piece.
Preschooler (3 years): 2-4 pieces.
Preschooler (4-5 years): 4-10 pieces.
School-age children: more than 10 pieces.

Durability and ease of handle: The younger your kids are, the more durable the child jigsaw puzzle has to be. For this reason wooden jigsaw puzzle is highly preferable for the young ones. In addition, kid jigsaw puzzles with knobs or pegs are the first choice for young toddlers since these type of jigsaw puzzles are easy to handle.