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Educational Value of Play - Puzzles
Puzzles
Puzzles are a self correcting experience. Children can see when they have it correct whilst they are doing it.
Children love 'doing' puzzles (and so does this Nanna). There are such an amazing variety of pictures, puzzle shapes, 2D/3D, sizes and range of age suitability as to satisfy everyone's needs. When selecting a puzzle for your child think about the relevance of the puzzle (picture and type of puzzle) and consider safety of the pieces. Choose a picture that is of interest to your child and realistic in design. It can be very frustrating for a child when trying to piece together an object whose picture just doesn't look right anyway or is of an object that they have never seen and means nothing to them.
Puzzles present a challenge. Perception (visual, sensory), memory and logic are involved in identifying clues and working out the relationships of the parts to the whole. Children need to explore various relationships between the pieces until a solution is reached.
For very young children the puzzle pieces should follow the outline of the object (eg. one puzzle piece may be the whole car or house). These puzzles have a base board with the shape cut out of it and the puzzle piece fits into the 'hole' and has a large knob for little fingers to hold onto - called an inset puzzle- Children then progress to puzzles where the cutting is into smaller pieces but still logical in meaning (eg. a puzzle of a person may be made up of a head piece, body piece, 2 arm pieces and 2 leg pieces.) Inset design is still best for this stage.
- From here children move onto puzzles that may be inset puzzles with several layers (eg. our fish puzzle) and puzzles of increasing numbers of pieces according to child's ability such as floor puzzles, 3D puzzles, strip puzzles etc. The puzzle pieces may not follow an obvious line so children have to start matching pattern and lines.
- Introduce puzzles of more pieces and complexity as they get older and master the easier puzzles. Puzzles are an excellent medium to encourage group participation - siblings working together, or their friend.
Be careful in the selection of puzzles. Make sure there are not too many background pieces of the same colour. The smallest piece should be larger than 2.5cm for 4-6 year olds and larger the younger the child - to avoid choking. Look for pieces that are durable. Wooden puzzles are best or sturdy cardboard. Check for sharp edges.
Physical
Puzzles promote physical development especially the development of fine motor skills as children manipulate puzzle pieces, turn them around and carefully place them. Hand-eye coordination is developed as they carefully place pieces in the exact position. Manipulating and rotating pieces develops finger control, promotes dexterity and the control of the small muscles of the hand and wrist, so important when children are learning to write.
Language/Social/Emotional Development
Children learn to stick to the task until it is successful ie. it promotes self discipline and perseverance. They learn that their persistance will result in a successful outcome.Often it is an exercise in developing patience! (Yours as well as your childs!!!!). Children discover for themselves means with which to tackle the puzzle – problem solving. Repeated success in these activities can lead to the expectation that problems can be solved by systematic thinking and thus future problems may be faced without fear.
Children can learn to work individually or learn to work together with others. They learn to take turns and share the pieces.
Language is stimulated as children interact with an adult or other children about what the picture is about, colours, shape etc.
Mathematical Concepts
Many mathematical concepts are introduced and reinforced when children play with puzzles.
They develop the concept of spatial relationships as they see how the pieces/shapes fit together, which pieces go above or below another piece, which pieces need to be rotated to fit correctly with the next piece. Children learn to experiment with the rotation of shapes.
Puzzles develop visual perception as children learn to match patterns, colours and lines to form the picture. Children learn that one piece makes up a part of the whole, an early concept for children to understand fractions. They look at size relationships.
