For the parents

Maja Mądrzak-Zakrzewska

Psychologist

 

Puzzles – experience, fun, learning, and development

Puzzles are fun. Children play primarily for pleasure and satisfaction.  Sometimes they are driven by curiosity, urged by the desire to experience and establish contact with what appeals to their imagination and aesthetic sensitivity.  Puzzles are pieces which evoke engagement and at the same time stimulate the child to persevere, focus attention, and plan its actions.  An excellent example of a structural game, puzzles also develop motoric precision and the skill of designing.

We can initiate the child to this type of game as early as at the age of 18 months.  The first sets will be made of large blocks or pieces, and the child’s tasks may consist in e.g. filling in hollows, putting a hat on teddy’s head, or placing the dog in the kennel.  Our kid will practice finger manipulation and manual precision fitting in the pieces to match the slots.  Moreover, the child sees rearrangement as an opportunity to consolidate experiencing himself/herself as the maker of the change taking place in effect of his/her premeditated activity.

About the age of 3 we can introduce large-piece puzzles.  When purchasing the first set we need to make sure that the picture is clear.  The colours of the first puzzles should be obvious, and the isolated elements given a clear contour line.  Of course, it is recommendable to buy puzzles featuring the child’s favourite fictitious character.  This will make them even more attractive and/or inspire a child less keen on puzzles to give the game a try.  Playing puzzles skilfully and frequently our child will find it easier to identify the letters and digits at a later age.  Puzzles prepare the child to mastering the reading and writing, since the gist of the game is based on the same perception organising processes: the ability and skill of performing visual analysis and synthesis.  Doing puzzles requires direct involvement of the brain areas responsible for perceptiveness, the ability to differentiate the figures, and coordination of the analysers (eyes and hands).  The latter is of particular importance for children at risk for dislexia or showing symptoms of disorders of the type, to name e.g. mistaking letters of similar shapes, mirror writing, experiencing problems with directional orientation (mixing up the right and left sides), suffering from attention deficit or impaired visual-motor coordination.

Furthermore, puzzles offer the child an opportunity to play individually or in a group.  It is recommendable for the parents to sit down to puzzles with the mixed team of their elder and younger kids.  Playing in a group teaches children how to cooperate and induces them to aim at exerting influence for reasons reaching beyond their own needs towards task attainment and common goals.  The latter phenomenon can be observed reflected in the occurrence of increasingly advanced social behaviour such as initiating, objecting, encouraging, or directing.  The time we spend doing puzzles with all our children will certainly bear fruit – the little ones will be better prepared to discovering this world, and the older children will develop their imagination, social skills, and creativeness.  Puzzle time offers us a priceless opportunity to give one another much interest, engagement, and sheer joy.

Enjoy your puzzle time!

 

 

Barbara Kupiec
Psychologist and therapist, experienced at working with dyslectic children

To entertain and teach
Indulging in team games is a valuable and beneficial form of pastime for the whole family.  While playing children learn as if ‘by accident’.  They acquire valuable practical skills, and mature emotionally.  Playing with our offspring we create conditions which stimulate the development of many cognitive functions at all stages of the child’s life.  Organised entertainment shared with the parents or brothers and sisters fosters the tightening of family bonds, teaches work organisation, develops the ability to abide by the rules and keep patience.  Games carry the joy of victory and at the same time teach ways of coping with failure.  Being true fun, they integrate the family.

Indulging in team games is a valuable and beneficial form of pastime for the whole family.  While playing children learn as if ‘by accident’.  They acquire valuable practical skills, and mature emotionally.  Playing with our offspring we create conditions which stimulate the development of many cognitive functions at all stages of the child’s life.  Organised entertainment shared with the parents or brothers and sisters fosters the tightening of family bonds, teaches work organisation, develops the ability to abide by the rules and keep patience.  Games carry the joy of victory and at the same time teach ways of coping with failure.  Being true fun, they integrate the family.

 

Trefl produces board games and puzzles designed to suit the intellectual level of children at various ages.  Younger children learn discerning colours, matching shapes.  They develop perceptiveness, memorise digits, and improve their manual skills (gripping, moving the cards, tossing the dice).

Many games foster the development of mathematical skills and abstract thinking, broaden memory, help build the concept of
a digit, teach sets, their underlying associations, and assignment of a specific number of elements to each set.  Using didactic puzzles in games children easily learn adding to 10.

 

The products manufactured by Trefl develop perceptiveness, focused attention, and stimulate visual analysis and synthesis.  These particular skills determine the child’s readiness to take up school at the age of six or seven.  I personally recommend Trefl games, especially to the parents and teachers of children at the pre-school and lower primary school levels.

Board games and puzzles produced by Trefl educate, develop creativity, train memory, teach logical thinking, and at the same time give much pleasure while spending time together.