Puzzle Meisters in Training

A puzzle meister is not created overnight. It takes hours and hours of hard work to instill a skill for puzzles and a love of puzzles in a young child. Oh sure, there is the occasional child with a natural love of jigsaw puzzles who seeks out puzzles on their own, but most puzzle meisters are trained up, not born.

Someone takes them in hand and introduces them to the craft of puzzling. They start with simple peg puzzles where the pieces fit into a single piece slot. Next simple jigsaw puzzles are played with: 9 piece puzzles, 12 piece puzzles, and 20 piece puzzles. Some days the same puzzle is done three times in a row. Other days a new puzzle is tried.

The student in training is given many different types of puzzles to work with, not just jigsaw puzzles with innie and outie pieces, but ones with gentle curves. Both frame puzzles and box puzzles are worked. Foam, wood, and cardboard--all types of puzzles are good training fodder.

Bentley is a grand puzzler (as we've mentioned a few times). He does 100 piece puzzles on his own (sometimes three or four in one afternoon) and he likes to do 300 piece puzzles with a companion. Jake and Viva are not so advanced. Of course, they are not as old as Bentley, but I think he was further along in the fine art of jigsaw puzzles when he was their age than they currently are.

I've been trying to make a special effort lately to do at least one puzzle every day with Jake and one puzzle every day with Viva. Sometimes they want to do more than one. I think they are advancing in their skills. Some days we do 48 piece puzzles together. I still have to coach them, but they are getting better. Viva says she's ready for a 100 piece puzzle, but I'm not sure I'm ready to take on that project with her. I think we'll stick with 48 piecers.

At this point you may be wondering why I train up little puzzle meisters. What is the big deal? You can't earn a college scholarship by working jigsaw puzzles.

Au contraire! Jigsaw puzzles build your brain. They develop your abilities to reason, analyze, sequence, and deduce. These skills help you think logically and solve problems. Jigsaw puzzles improve hand-eye co-ordination and help develop a good working sense of spatial arrangements.

Furthermore jigsaw puzzles exercise both the left and right hemispheres of the brain. The left-brain thinks logically and follows sequence while the right brain is creative, intuitive and emotional. When you put together a jigsaw puzzle, you engage both sides. Awesome! For some people puzzling is a form of meditation. I could list even more benefits of jigsaw puzzling, but this is supposed to be a blog about the children, so I'd best get back on that topic.

My point is that it takes a lot of time and work to help children learn to do jigsaw puzzles, but it's time well spent. It's fun. It's highly educational. And if you work hard, you'll have a full-fledged jigsaw partner is just a few short years.