Puzzles

Solving a puzzle helps improve basic motor skills such as hand-eye coordination as it requires the child to manipulate relatively small objects and to place these objects in specific places. This exercise, in turn benefits the thinking and cognitive skill of your little one.

Puzzle solving activities can start at very early ages and continue as children get older. Wooden puzzles are an excellent way to help a child's cognitive and learning skills grow. Wooden puzzles are very beneficial for toddlers. Their fine motor skills are being developed and wooden puzzles are easy to grasp as compared to other puzzle types. Children like the texture and thickness of the wood and are more likely play with the individual parts of wood puzzles before they begin to try to fit them together. These puzzles are designed just for toddlers, with big pieces and durable material.

One of the favorite game among toddlers can be, 'Guess the Animal'. This game helps to build your child's thinking skills, memory, speech, and knowledge about animals.

Tell your child, that you have thought of an animal and mention about one of it's characteristics. Ask your child to guess the animal. Try and encourage her with clues and reward her at the end of the game.

In older children, between the age of 3 to 5, the team member who is able to guess the animal, gets a chance to quiz the other players. Another way of playing this game is to give each player a chance to quiz the other team members.

This game can be modified for older children by making the clues more difficult. For younger kids, clues can be simple and can include colors, size and shape, or whether the animal has wings, scales, or fur.

This is just one example how you can help your child build her thinking skills. This game can be played with other concepts as shapes, professions, places etc. Each game session should end leaving the child well informed, happy and eagerly waiting for a new game to begin.

Take care.