You might have heard us talk about why wooden puzzles for babies are a fantastic way to learn new skills, but today we want to dive a bit deeper into why baby puzzles are incredible for early education.
We believe the benefits of playing with puzzles fall into three categories – physical skills, cognitive skills and personal skills.
Physical skills include hand eye coordination, fine motor skills when you pick the pieces up, gross motor skills when you extend your arm to find the right piece and so many other skills as your move the pieces around in your fingers and put them in just the right places.
Isn’t it amazing to think that when you give your baby puzzles to play with you are already working on their muscles they will use to write, to catch and to even type one day. The benefits of babies playing with puzzles last for years, decades even!
The cognitive skills that babies will develop are things like colour matching, realising the straight pieces go around the edge (maybe not for babies, but they will get there), matching the images in the pegged pieces with the board and memory of what pieces go where. For babies, we recommend large, chunky and pegged puzzles. These give the best opportunity for your baby to find the correct pieces – and completing the puzzle is such a great goal for a child to achieve.
Finally, personal, or emotional skills. These are skills around patience, taking turns, the pride and reward of completing the puzzle and the interaction your child will get when playing with puzzles with you. When your baby is playing with a wooden puzzle they are showing you how they can complete the task. They will feel a sense of joy as you exclaim when they get a piece in the correct spot and you can even develop language together by talking about the themes, colours and animals you see on the pieces.
Puzzles may seem like a toy for an older child, but under supervision, we believe the benefits of playing with puzzles for babies can’t be denied.
There is no mistaking the benefits of puzzles in childhood development. You used them, your parents used them, their parents used them and now your children are using them to learn through play.
By providing your baby with puzzles to play with and enjoy you are giving them the opportunity to continue learning. The subject of puzzles ranges so far and wide – like animals, shapes, colours and more = so you are sure to find the perfect puzzle from CleverStuff that will be a family favourite in your house.
Want to see a huge range of puzzles for your baby? We have you covered.
