Puzzle
How to choose the right puzzle?
A correctly chosen puzzle can be a source of satisfaction and development while having fun. However, giving a child too difficult a task may cause boredom, or even frustration. It’s worth remembering this when choosing a puzzle. Below are a few tips on how to best match the puzzle to the child’s skills and development.
Benefits of puzzles
Puzzles provide good practice in manual skills, visual perception, and also the cognitive skills responsible for the organisation and strategy of the piecing together process. Puzzles teach patience and perseverance, and the reward is the satisfaction of the complete image. Puzzles can be a stand-alone activity, but also a great pastime for a group of friends or family.
Puzzle development
Ages 2–3: Start with jumbo knob/chunky pieces for the 2-year-olds up to 10 pieces.
Later you can try 2–3 pieces jigsaw/match puzzles and as your child grows 4-12 pieces.
Ages 3: Expose them to 8-20 pieces.
Ages 4–5: Can also handle jigsaw puzzles with up to 40-50 pieces.
Ages 6–7: This age group can tackle puzzles with up to 120 pieces. As kids move away from puzzles with maxi-blocks, they develop their fine motor skills.
Ages 8–9: Kids in this age range should be able to solve puzzles with anywhere between 100 and 500 pieces, depending on their development. Kids should be developing strategic problem-solving skills like sorting puzzles by size, shape, or color.
Ages 10+: Kids ages 10+ should be able to solve any size puzzle with enough patience or guidance. These kids should be able to solve puzzles of many varieties and will have developed the motor skill needed to piece them together. 100-1000 pieces.