Jigsaw Puzzles for Children: How to benefit their development and growth?
Buying jigsaw puzzles for children is a great gift idea for birthdays and Christmas. It is both a toy/game as well as a lesson. They are beneficial to kids’ growth and development all-around. However, before choosing the next presents for your boys and girls, let’s see what and how it can be good for them first.
Yes, we know that children are not so patient. Therefore, puzzling is exactly the challenge and training they need. Nothing is more pleasing than seeing them enjoy the puzzles and improve in many aspects over time.
Anyway, you will be surprised how much the little ones have learned through assembling puzzles…
Jigsaw Puzzles for Children: The benefit to their development and growth
IQ
Jigsaw puzzles offer exercises for children’s brains, particularly for their ability in processing information. Throughout a puzzle game, they need to identify the pieces and remember their shapes, consistently trying to obtain a solution.
Brain Coordination
The human’s left brain handles logic and problem-solving, while the creative right brain is to oversee the big picture. Puzzling is simply a workout and coordination for both sides of the brain. Kids can learn, understand and remember in the assembling process.
Memory
Playing puzzles is training for short-term memory. Our brains work hard in processing shapes and colors. We need to identify the next missing piece and locate the right one to fit in. This is an exercise to improve memory recall.
Organization Skills
There are practical strategies for puzzling, particularly effective and important for big jigsaw puzzles. The organization and sorting are lessons of preparation and planning ahead. We know, they are essential qualities for anything they will encounter in the future.
Concentration
Puzzling gives you private time (me time). You have a moment to stay focused on a single task, not being distracted, and help enhance attention. Well, no parent would complain about keeping their kids quiet for hours.
Inspection and Cognitive Abilities
Playing puzzles is about image recognition and space organization. These require attention to detail, understanding the theme/image, and analyzing the relationship of the pieces. Furthermore, children can learn how to take hints and approach the next moves.
credit: Ksenia Chernaya
2D Space Concept
To build a puzzle, we need to fit in pieces by rotating and testing different angles. This is an opportunity for toddlers to learn about the concept of 2D space.
Comparing and Decision-making
In locating the right piece at a specific position, the step is to search from the pools and decide which are more likely to match here or there. The more you practice, the more you are capable of identifying the right pieces! This is simply experience.
Children will be delighted in seeing the improvement which motivates them to keep going.
Motor Skills
Toddlers use their little fingers to hold the pieces and attempt to fit them into the right spots. This is helpful training in developing motor skills from childhood.
Hand-eye Coordination
When stuck, you need to step away a bit and evaluate the overall situation. The point is to find the right pieces, and match them to the correct places. A toddler would take time and patience to learn all these, but it should start from a young age.
Small Parts Forming Big Sections
Building jigsaw puzzles is a good way to understand the concept of “parts” and “whole”. In puzzling, small pieces together form the overall picture.
This also brings an unexpected benefit for something essential: It is particularly helpful in learning some languages, especially in writing. For example, characters in Asian languages, like Chinese, Japanese and Korean, are often built in small bits. In Chinese, the word “small” on top of “big” makes the word “point” or “tip”. A “human” on the left next to a “tree” is the term “rest”.
Patience and Determination
Puzzling is a game full of challenges as failure often happens in solving problems. You need to be persistent, and keep trying to fight toward the goal. Anyway, at the right time, you learn to seek help when needed.
Bonding
Like playing cards, the jigsaw puzzle is always a good game for bonding. Let’s spend a few hours during weekends, and have some fun with parents, siblings or relatives!
credit: Pavel Danilyuk
Responsibility
After finishing, you may want to frame or disassemble the puzzles later. It is a good practice for children to take responsibility. They are accountable for maintaining, packing, and storage of their own toys.
Summary
See how much these pieces of cardboard can help your children’s growth and development? Sure, to all the parents, a puzzle is overall a more favorable toy/entertainment than any electronic device.
Let’s get some ideas for purchasing the perfect jigsaw puzzles for your beloved kids. Alternatively, simply customize one with your own design or photographs. They are also perfect gift ideas for your family and relatives!