Puzzles come in many shapes, sizes and forms. They support children in problem-solving while they learn about colours, shapes, numbers, letters and many other concepts.
BestStart is for families who want more from early-childhood education. Safe, nurturing and educationally focused, we’re committed to growing caring people with curious minds. Together we teach, learn and nurture.Our vision is to work in partnership with families, whanau and communities to enable children to achieve their learning potential.
Our centres have areas with a range of puzzles for children to solve depending on their ability. From jigsaws, three dimensional puzzles, to shape and space recognition activities and maze problems, you’ll see many types of puzzles for children to work with. It’s also great to have puzzles that relate to children’s current interest or connections with their home and community.
Puzzles support children to develop their perseverance and patience as they learn to solve the puzzle before them. Handling and manipulating the pieces help the small muscle development in their young hands and fingers. Mastering the mental and physical – puzzle play has it all!
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Our centres have areas with a range of puzzles for children to solve depending on their ability. From jigsaws, three dimensional puzzles, to shape and space recognition activities and maze problems, you’ll see many types of puzzles for children to work with. It’s also great to have puzzles that relate to children’s current interest or connections with their home and community.
Puzzles support children to develop their perseverance and patience as they learn to solve the puzzle before them. Handling and manipulating the pieces help the small muscle development in their young hands and fingers. Mastering the mental and physical – puzzle play has it all!
Puzzles are a great way for children to develop their hand–eye coordination, helping them master their movements and gain control of their body.
The development of finger and hand muscles happens through puzzle play. The fine, controlled movements children use are the very same motor skills they use when learning to write.
Learning to solve problems, to persevere and be patient are all things children will learn when trying to solve a puzzle. Our teachers support this learning by allowing them to do the puzzles at their own pace, taking an interest but not taking over is important.
Learning to reason and deal with frustration follows as children discover that things don’t always work out the way they want. Our teachers talk to children about what they are doing and may suggest different ways of doing things. Teachers help children to accept that they will make mistakes and let them know that it’s okay, it’s all part of the process
Puzzles | Panga
Continuing the learning at home
Try making your own Post box – an old container or box with various things to post is a great activity for younger children helping to develop their hand-eye coordination and solve problems.
Get a range of puzzle types - stacking puzzles and threading puzzles offer great challenges to children as they grow
Depending on your child’s age and ability, there are puzzles from one piece through to many pieces
Puzzles that focus on shape, on number recognition, sizes small to large, provide additional learning about other concepts such as geometry, numeracy and measurement
Make a cardboard puzzle out of a family photo or items around your house. Glue a copy of a photo onto cardboard. Depending on the age of the child cut the photo into 2, 4, 18 or 16 pieces and then let your child piece the photo back together again!
Keeping the puzzle area tidy and organised will encourage children to attempt to solve the puzzles. They need time and space to figure things out.
Children grow out of puzzles quickly and so it can be good to join a toy library and resource puzzles that way
