Puzzles are used by teachers and therapists to help children acquire many of the skills necessary for early learning.
A few of the educational skills your child will acquire when completing a Smart Play Puzzle include:
• Hand-eye coordination – manipulating the puzzle pieces helps the eyes, hands and fingers work together in coordinated movements.
• Visual discrimination – puzzle pieces are sorted, matched and grouped according to colour, line and shape. In this way the child’s ability to notice similarities and differences is enhanced.
• Position and direction – puzzle pieces have to be turned until they are placed in the correct position. If incorrectly placed, the pieces will not fit together.
• Focussing and concentrating – the child needs to be able to concentrate if he or she is to complete the puzzle.
• Part/whole relationships – the child will learn that a whole picture is made up of several smaller parts – an important life and learning skill.
• Problem solving – the jigsaw puzzle is a ‘problem’ that requires solving and there is only one way to solve it, the correct way. We know your child will enjoy solving this problem.
• Language skills – learning basic words from puzzles and extending theme discussions based on the puzzle will develop new vocabulary.
All these are basic skills which should be learned in the first years of early childhood. Children spend most of the early years learning to sort, match and learn about colour, shape and line all of which are basic pre-reading and pre-math skills. Just imagine learning to write if you have no idea of the position or direction of the letters! Imagine learning to do maths if you have no idea of shape or position. Imaging counting if you do not know which number comes before or after another.
