Why are wooden jigsaw puzzles so beneficial to children's early learning and development?

Why are wooden jigsaw puzzles so beneficial to children's early learning and development?

Posted by greengrub Wooden Toys On 26th Jul 2018 In #educationaltoys, #jigsawpuzzle, #learningtoys, #preschool, #puzzles

Puzzles are a very effective educational learning tool for children, providing some of the best ways to introduce and develop invaluable skills and learning which benefit kids for life.

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Puzzles can benefit all ages, particularly young children such as toddlers and pre-schoolers and the elderly who might otherwise not stimulate or test their mind as much as they once did. The challenges puzzles provide are excellent for developing and maintaining cognitive skills and also very effective at developing emotional and physical skills as well. These later skills are more suited to the early learning of children than the elderly but are none the less a valuable learning tool.

According to Steven Clontz from clontz.org, basically any question, problem or challenge can be called a puzzle if it satisfies two properties:

  1. It is designed to entertain the puzzler or puzzle solver; and
  2. There is a clearly defined solution to the problem or puzzle

Educational Wooden Puzzles

By far the most common and arguably best puzzle for young children and kids learning is the mechanical puzzle but keep in mind puzzles come in many different formats and types, Steven identifies the main ones as:

  • Mechanical Puzzles - such as jigsaw puzzles, Rubics cubes etc;
  • Logic Puzzles – Sudoku for example;
  • Math Puzzles - setting a numerical or formula based challenge;
  • Cryptic puzzles – progressive puzzles; correctly answer a question, be given a clue, find a location, identify a token;
  • Word puzzles – crosswords or Boggle; and
  • Trivia puzzles – test your knowledge about certain subjects.

It’s generally considered best to start children with mechanical puzzles, such as jigsaw puzzles, as part of their early learning in formative early childhood years from toddler and pre-schooler age progressing as their ability and confidence grows from infants school onwards to other more challenging puzzle types. Given we’re focused on the best wooden puzzles for kids early learning let’s look in depth at mechanical puzzles and the learning benefits they provide kids and young children.

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Jigsaw puzzles are the most common mechanical puzzle and according to Wikipedia were invented by a British engraver, John Spilsbury around 1760. Jigsaw puzzles have proved so popular for learning, entertainment and fun, you would be hard pressed to find anywhere on earth where some type of jigsaw puzzle couldn’t be found.

Jigsaw puzzles or indeed any type of mechanical puzzle including 3D puzzles, matching puzzles, wooden maze puzzles and wooden stacking or block puzzles have many learning benefits for kids and young children.

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Kids significantly benefit from playing and engaging with wooden jigsaw puzzles in three key areas of skill development:

  1. Cognitive skills;
  2. Physical skills; and
  3. Emotional skills.

Learning Benefits of playing with Jigsaw Puzzles

The above high-level skills can be broken down further into more easily recognised learning outcomes for children so let’s look a little deeper into the educational and learning benefits puzzles and particularly wooden jigsaw puzzles provide young children.

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Cognitive Skills

  • Puzzles encourage children to use their memory to store information then retrieve and apply logic and thought processes to solve problems and experiment with different options, such as the various ways a puzzle’s pieces might fit together.
  • Jigsaw’s encourage visualisation of an outcome such as a finished puzzle in a fun and engaging way then providing the challenge of working logically through steps to reach that end point.
  • Finally, children’s puzzles assist kids in focusing attention and concentration on the task at hand, being less likely to be distracted due to the high level of mental and physical engagement required to logically work through the challenge posed by the jigsaw puzzle.

Summarising cognitive benefits of wooden puzzles for kids – puzzles develop cognitive skills which assist children absorb, process and evaluate information using sensory perception and thought processes.

Physical Skills

  • Surprisingly; Kids puzzles require a high degree of physical effort and skill for young children to complete them successfully. Jigsaw puzzles encourage fine motor skills such as hand eye co-ordination which can be tricky for young kids to master at first so continued practice and encouragement to play with puzzles significantly improves this learning.
  • Puzzles provide a very effective, fun and safe learning tool for kids, increasing dexterity of their small fingers to pick up, grasp and experiment by placing puzzle pieces in different ways as they attempt to finish the puzzle challenge.
  • Jigsaw puzzles develop muscle strength and to a lesser extent endurance within children’s arms, hands and fingers which greatly assists kids in learning how to hold a pen or pencil, fundamental to future educational and learning success.

Summarising physical benefits of educational puzzles for kids – jigsaw puzzles encourage kids to develop and increase physical activity and skills by using arms, hands and fingers as the outcome of their focussed cognitive and emotional efforts to successfully complete puzzle challenges.

Emotional Skills

  • Puzzles are exceptionally good at developing children’s emotional skills by encouraging persistence and perseverance to complete the puzzle’s challenge through trial and error while at the same time developing patience and understanding that the jigsaw puzzle solution may take some time and isn’t instant gratification like some electronic toys.
  • Children will also develop important social skills as they work together with other kids, siblings, parents and adults learning various communication skills and developing an understanding of sharing and the advantages of team or group work to achieve the common goal of solving the jigsaw puzzle challenge.
  • Playing with puzzles improves language skills as kids communicate with each other while puzzling in groups or with adults, this is especially useful for autistic children who through having autism often have slower speech development. Puzzles can be extremely valuable in overcoming learning difficulties and ideal educational development tools for these autistic children providing economical fun, playful and effective learning within the family home.
  • Puzzles provide children the opportunity to assess their own efforts and correct errors if the puzzle pieces have been placed incorrectly. Kids get great self-satisfaction when a jigsaw puzzle is solved correctly delivering pride and accomplishment and significantly building self-esteem of young personalities.

Share the Love with Kids Jigsaw Puzzles

Summarising emotional benefits of wooden puzzles for kids – jigsaw puzzles provide the flexibility of individual or solo play as well as educational group play and interaction which provides enormous emotional learning value by developing communication and language skills, persistence, self-esteem, confidence and team work just to name a few.

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So let’s finish up by revisiting our original question -

Why are Wooden Jigsaw Puzzles so beneficial to Children's Early Learning and Development?

The short answer is; because puzzles are one of the most effective, versatile, economical and proven learning tools available to engage, encourage and develop the foundational skills all children need for a happy and productive life.

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