Use your creative kids voucher to improve your child’s creativity! We all want to bring up our children in a manner that will help prepare them for future challenges. Allowing your kid early on to learn how to exude courage and confidence can enable them to reach their full potential in the future. One way to aid your child’s early development is by engaging them in jigsaw puzzle creation.
Kids puzzles are one of the best classic toys for young children. They are versatile and come in a wide range of forms, types, levels of difficulty, and materials used. They are not limited to age as even infants can create simple puzzles such as fitting two pieces together. But as the child grows, you can change the difficulty levels of the puzzles to help them grow their mental strengths. Puzzles have also been found to play an important role in building up the cognitive and motor skills of children as well as helping them fine-tune their social, language, and emotional skills when the puzzles are used thoughtfully.
Kids can learn the following from puzzles:
Concentration
At a young age, most kids’ attention span is just a minute or less. However, young child development studies have shown that a child can actually concentrate 2 to 5 times their age, meaning a 2-year-old can concentrate on a particular task for 4 minutes to 10 minutes while a 3-year old for 6 minutes to 15 minutes.
Puzzles have been found to be an effective tool to help develop and build concentration muscles in young ones. Being able to focus on a single task for a long period of time is part and parcel of strengthening attention, and puzzle creation gives children an opportunity to work on a single task uninterrupted.
When buying puzzles for kids, make sure you get the one that is meant for his or her age so that they can get full benefits from it. If the puzzle is too difficult, it will only push your child on the edge and they will become impatient, subsequently giving up on puzzle creation. On the other hand, too easy puzzles will not provide enough challenge to your child and thus will have no effects on developing their concentration.
You can choose the level of difficulty according to the age of your child, and even use creative kids voucher to get a great deal on your personalised puzzles. Simply head to the NSW Services website to register for your voucher.
Spatial Awareness
Puzzle creation can also help your kid build spatial awareness. This skill involves being conscious of the space around you and how the surrounding objects relate to you and each other. It also involves being aware of the relations between objects change once one of them is moved.
Spatial perception can be developed and nurtured when solving puzzles. Your child will learn quickly how to identify pieces that can fit together by examining their colors and shapes and to find the right fit, they will have to play around with the pieces. As time passes, they will learn how to do this mentally instead of physically through trial and error.
If you have time, try doing the puzzle with your kid and use as plenty of spatial language as possible while playing. Spatial language includes words such as ‘besides, below, turn, next to, above, outside, between and to the left/right’ among others.
Fine motor skills
Babies are known for being a little clumsy. Their hands can struggle to grasp at the puzzle pieces and can drop them a few times. It is not only babies, even toddlers can find it hard to do simple tasks such as buttoning up, pouring juice into the glass, and even writing letters.
This is due to the fact that at this young age, kids are still developing fine motor skills. A fine motor skill is simply the ability to make movements with small muscles in your wrists, feet, fingers, toes, and hands.
It is a skill that takes time to develop in children because their young muscles need constant exercise and practice involving moving and holding small objects correctly. Fortunately, this can be improved by playing with jigsaw puzzles.
Not all types of puzzles however are suitable for developing fine motor skills in children. One of the best options is pegged puzzles, which force a child to use his or her pincer grip. Another great example is jigsaw puzzles, which require the child to make precise movements so that they can get the pieces to fit into place correctly.
It is important to ensure your toddler learns fine motor skills at a young age since this skill will come in handy later on when they are required to hold a paintbrush or a pencil in kindergarten. Unlike in spatial awareness where it is advisable to help your kid, with fine motor skills, let them do it on their own.
Problem-solving skills
Young kids will often get frustrated and give up when they face a challenge. This is not a bad thing since they are yet to or are still developing their problem-solving ability. To help them build and nurture this skill, get them to play puzzles. For instance, putting the pieces of a jigsaw together, they are solving a problem because the pieces are mixed up, and to put them into place, the child needs to organise them in terms of shapes and colors. This enhances his or her problem-solving skill.
You can help your child complete the puzzles by showing them the required strategies to complete the puzzles. For instance, you can teach your child to sort the pieces of the puzzle by object or color. This sorting skill helps your kid learn how to break down tasks into smaller bits, making them easier to solve. It also helps kids learn decision-making. For instance, what should I do when the piece doesn’t fit? They can decide to save the piece for later or turn it around.
Kidz Jigz provides a large range of puzzles for all different ages, you can use your creative kids voucher to purchase these puzzles free of charge.
Language
While some kids are talkative others are quieter, all of them can benefit from learning new words. Children need to be spoken to a lot, particularly when they are still young. Speaking to your child exposes them to a new word of vocabulary, which will in turn, affect their language skills.
After solving a kidz puzzle, kids will want to learn about the meaning of the assembled image, thus they ask questions and talk to teachers or parents about the images or objects they see in the puzzle. This enables them to learn new vocabulary and enhance their speech.
Your kids can learn a lot from puzzle creation so use your free creative kids voucher! Educational toys are crucial to children’s early development as a parent or teacher, it is essential that you ensure they access these creative puzzle tools. Kidz Jigz can help you find the best puzzle for your child regardless of their age, and help put them on a path to a bright future. Order your custom puzzle today!