Puzzles

Tanner is a puzzle master! He has been into puzzles since before he had his first birthday. Of course we first started out simple with wooden peg puzzles like the one below:

When Tanner was really young I focused on just having him match the pictures. I would help him to put the piece in. I would also give him verbal clues about what to do and show him, then let him try to do it himself. I think at first he just loved dumping out the puzzle pieces. When he mastered this type of puzzle I introduced frame-tray puzzles like the one below (and the one I had was from my childhood so it was thicker cardboard. Some of the ones they sell new are really thin and more difficult and poorly made.):These type of puzzles are great because the "tray" has part of the picture already there to get you started and underneath the puzzle pieces it has an outline of the shape of the puzzle pieces(which can help your child to match the shapes of the pieces with the outlined shapes). I was surprised at how young Tanner was able to master this type of puzzle. He could do these 12 piece puzzles before his 2nd birthday. Then we graduated up to wooden 12 piece puzzles like the one below (the picture below shows the wooden box the puzzle comes in.):

This type of puzzle is of course more difficult because your child has to learn to really look at the picture to try and match up pieces. If Tanner wasn't so interested in puzzles I don't think we would have done these at such a young age. It took great patience on both our parts. He would try to match up pieces that didn't work and I would either point out a different piece he should try or tell him to rotate the piece. Of course some of the directions had little meaning to him at first. So I would tell him and then show him what I meant. I also talked about the picture it was making and I would tell him to look for the bus's wheels or the man's yellow shoes. After these puzzles your kid could probably do most any puzzle of course the biggest puzzle Tanner does right now is about 48 pieces.I like the wooden puzzles because Tanner can rip the pieces apart and not break them! Also they seem like they will last longer.