Simple Puzzles for the Little Ones

Puzzle is an entertaining developmental and educational game that requires patience, accuracy and attention. Bringing together puzzle pieces, the child learns the connection between the part and the whole, develops logical thinking and fine motor skills of hands. In order to complete a rather complicated puzzle, you need to have a good knowledge of spatial characteristics and imagination, the ability to turn the picture over in your mind, the ability to find the necessary piece.

• Development of fine motor skills, coordination of movements: Since the puzzle consists of quite small details, the need to correlate parts of objects, to cope with small parts of the picture develops the motor skills of the fingers and the hand of the child, his movements become precise, and subsequently meaningful. In the future, spatial orientation and fine precise coordination of hands and fingers will help the baby to quickly learn how to write, save him from problems with handwriting and speech.

• Training the ability to see the task from different angles, the ability to make hard decisions, the development of logical thinking. To properly complete puzzles, several factors must be taken into account at once:

• the shape of the piece,
• the depicted object in the picture,
• the sequence of placing an individual part,
• the final result of the work.

All of these will help the child to choose the correct strategy while dealing with a particular task in the future.

• Developing the imagination, spatial thinking, attention, memory: The child needs to be able to figuratively present what he needs to assemble, and during the assembly of the puzzle to keep this image in memory constantly.

• Developing the ability of decision-making independently, search for an answer without the help of adults: Complete freedom in the choice of behavior strategy while completing the pictures will allow the child to believe in his skills and independence, which will subsequently help him to make decisions in different life situations. So, the use of puzzles as a developmental toy for a child can be practiced from the very first days under the close attention of parents. If parents can instill interest in their baby to this wonderful game, then the child will not only be able to make significant progress in their development, but the whole family will have a new interesting game, which can always be devoted to quiet joint family time.

You should always start playing with viewing the whole picture. Then discuss the details of the action in the picture..

If the child is not yet familiar with the principle of playing with puzzles, an adult should first complete a picture to show him, and then remove 2-3 pieces and ask the kid for help. For young children, you can come up with a puzzle with fairy tale characters.