Mad About Puzzles
Puzzles are more than they appear. Here's our ultimate guide to why doing puzzles with children is a brilliant pastime. They're relatively inexpensive, they're an activity to pass the time, they're a bonding opportunity, they're frustrating (and that's a good thing!).
I love doing puzzles with my daughter. With my son too, of course - but he’s not as into them as she is. There’s something about getting down on the floor with her, emptying out the box, turning over the pieces and getting to work.
They say a good time to talk to a child is when you’re distracted with a task, rather than a more intense face-to-face discussion that can come across confrontational - a car journey is a classic, but I don’t drive so I don’t have that handy resource available to me. But doing a puzzle? We’re physically down on the same level, we’re on the same team, we’re working towards the same goal. Even if no conversations are had, I feel like the time was spent wisely and we had some quiet bonding time, I’ve filled her rhetorical cup with my time and indirect attention.
You know what’s also good about doing a puzzle? It’s frustrating the first few times they do it, before they’re used to it - it’s hard, it’s tricky, but it doesn’t feel like work - it’s play. The more time children spend in a frustrated state the better, tolerating frustration is a skill that not all adults have and the earlier in life we practice that skill and work that muscle the better. Entitlement (which is a dirty word among most parents) is the inability to tolerate frustration.
We've recently expanded our puzzle range - this is what we love about running this business, if we find something we love doing with our kids we can add it to our range.
We've categorised the puzzles by age, and here is our guide to what puzzle to choose for the various ages:
Puzzles for under 3's:
Let's start them young! Children under the age of three - unsurprisingly - will need simpler puzzles with larger pieces.
We have ones that are only three pieces per puzzle, incredibly simple, that show a sequence such as an egg, a chick hatching, then a chicken. A seed, a sapling, then a flower. These are perfect for children aound the age of 1-2 years.
Once they need a bit more of a challenge we get onto ones with more pieces, like this 24-piece floor puzzle. It shows a mouse family eating breakfast, naturally.
Puzzles for 4-7-year-olds
Stepping up a gear again we reach the 100-piece puzzles, and this is where the collection gets interesting and expands accordingly.
Look! This one glows in the dark! And has dragons! (Also available in dinosaur design - do things get much cooler?) View product here
Now, these are cool, they are decoder puzzles, you complete the puzzle then put on the glasses to reveal hidden objects. Available in Busy Readers and Monster Party.
We were gifted this puzzle for Christmas so I had to get it in the shop - it's a sharing puzzle, so one half is bigger pieces for smaller hands, and the other half is smaller pieces for bigger hands! They artfully fit together in the middle, so an adult and child or a younger and older child can do the puzzle together.
I also love the illustrations, especially the body positivity. View product here.
Do you like cats? Do you like puns? How about Romeow & Juliet by William Shakespurr? Also, side on it looks like a thick spined fancy book so could go on your bookshelf. View product here.
Or how about The Great Catsby by F. Scott Fitzhairball? View product here
.Once they've mastered the 100-piece puzzles, you could move up to a 300-piece. This one is my favourite and I bought it long before my daughter will be able to rise to the challenge, but there's something about cross-sections of buildings/houses and being able to look in every room that speaks to the curious child in me.
Puzzles for 8 years+
We get into the 500-piece puzzles now, which really can be for anyone ove the age of 8 - grown-ups included. Of course there are 1000-piece puzzles, but who's got time for that in this day and age? I've always said that the only way I'll get a 1000-piece puzzle done is if I go on holiday on my own for a week and it rains every day, I'm still waiting for that amazing opportunity.
I hope you do like cats and also like puns because we have more where they came from!
How about this one? View product here.
Or this one? View product here.
Or how about cats in the style of famous artworks? View product here.
How about some wild animals wearing flower headdresses? View product here.
I hope this has given you some puzzle inspiration. Have you come across any amazing puzzles that you think we should stock? Let us know!
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