Puzzle Panic

Children love puzzles, there is no doubt about it. We have at least twenty of them on our puzzle shelf, all types, age categories, and all our favorite characters. Puzzles teach fine motor skills, color matching and size matching skills. But, puzzles seem to get out of hand here. The kids will take out a puzzle, dump, the pieces, and start working on it, only to get bored or frustrated with it, and then leave it lay and take out the next one. I made the mistake once of letting the children play with the puzzles while I fixed lunch, only to check in to find that all the puzzles had been dumped on the floor, from the pegged ones to the twenty-five piece boxed puzzles. It was a nightmare. Frustrated, I scooped them all into a storage box and tucked them in the closet. When I finally got my courage up to sort them out, it took two hours.

So what’s the solution? I sat down and tried to figure out how I could keep the puzzles organized without having to stand over them while they played. The solutions are few and far between. I work with even my smallest child during the times I can give them my undivided attention, teaching them the one puzzle at a time rule. I coach them through putting it together and putting it back on the shelf when they are done. But even if I’m sitting right there, the situation can get away from me and the puzzles will get knocked over. So I use a numbering system. All of the pieces to a puzzle are assigned the same number or letter, and I write it on the back of the puzzle pieces. If it is a board puzzle, the number or letter also goes on the base. Now, if they get dumped, they still need to be put back together, but I don’t have to figure out which piece goes with which puzzle and that cuts cleanup time and frustration by almost half. And better yet, the kids can help figure out which piece goes where and it is excellent practice in number and letter recognition and sorting skills.

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