A Game For Kids to Play

Last night I had an old, ABC Floor Puzzle by Mudpuppy Press to play with my 22 months of age. The puzzle consists of 24 large 8 "square pieces that integrate easily and are easily handled by a small dog did. The box says 3 +, but was happy to get together and it was damn happy to have a piece to adapt to others. And I found exciting enough to spend seven or eight minutes on the floor with him. Mudpuppy's Departureother puzzles, too - they are well made and designed, and they come in boxes that make storage easy.

There is something zen about putting a puzzle together. It has no real productive purpose and is therefore very effective at driving Type A family members up the wall, though I've seen obsessive-compulsives unable to focus on anything else until every last piece was put in the puzzle. Me, I like it because I think it focuses the brain on colors and shapes and their inter-relationship. With Brain Awareness Week coming up, it's a good time to think of incorporating puzzles to stimulate neural pathway development (in your child) and maintenance (for you, old codger).

A good puzzle is a great way to spend time with your kids. Here's a rough guide for puzzle size, though kids will vary greatly:

Ages 1-3: Very simple block puzzles will help the child understand relationships between colors and shape.

Age 2-4: 20-35 piece traditional jigsaw puzzles are appropriate.

Ages 4-7: 60 piece traditional jigsaw puzzles are perfect for most 5 year olds. Keep in mind not only the size but the time, patience, and focus required.

Age 5-10: 100 piece puzzles are usually just right for ages 5-10.

Age 8-11: 200 piece puzzles.

Age 10-12: 300+ piece puzzles will match the skill level of 10-12 year olds.

My daughter (age 6) and I often put together a 40 piece puzzle before bedtime. It's quick, fun, and gives us a chance to wind down before the pre-bed routine.

Recently, we also tried the highly recommended Global Puzzle. With 600 pieces and dimensions measuring three feet wide and 18 inches tall, it's a big, big puzzle. But it's also a fun learning tool. Except for the oceans, most of the puzzle is made of pieces in the shape of the countries they represent. The puzzle is somewhat fragile that way, since most countries do not naturally interlock with their neighbors. Some of the pieces are very small, though very tiny countries and US states are conglomerated into pieces that don't require a pair of tweezers to manipulate. My daughter, still at six, was a bit young to do more than fit together big pieces of land in the same color (Antartica), but her grandmother and I spent two days trying to figure out where to put Cameroon and Madagascar.

For a slightly older child (the box says nine years, but could go younger, depending on the child), and the majority of American adults, this game is a great exercise in humility, as you can not even in Canada or Latin America to implement properly. It 'also sold by the National Geographic online store. Highly recommended.