Fine Motor Skills

Puzzles are an excellent tool for developing fine motor skills.

As children handle the small pieces, they strengthen their finger muscles.
They have to pick them up, turn them and hold them carefully to join them together, which requires good control.

As with other fine motor activities, make sure the size of the pieces is appropriate for a child’s age and development. Younger children need to practice with larger puzzle pieces before they can learn to handle small ones.

Gross Motor Skills

Certain puzzles, like large floor puzzles, can also develop gross motor skills.

As children need to move their bodies around while building them, they strengthen the larger muscles.

The motion of stretching across the body to pick up a piece to the left or right of a child, or placing it in position by leaning across the centre of the body, is great for learning to cross the midline.

Visual Perception

When children build puzzles, their eyes are seeing the shapes, images and forms on the pieces and this information gets sent to the brain, to interpret it. This is called visual perception.

Without this skill, you would not know or understand why two pieces should connect together, or how they form a part of the bigger picture.

Eye-Hand Coordination

Also part of developing visual skills, eye-hand coordination is the ability of the hands and the eyes to work together to function and perform tasks, such as catching a ball or tying a shoelace.
Building puzzles from an early age is a simple way to build eye-hand coordination and develop a child’s visual-motor integration, also an important skill for learning to write.

Eye-Hand Coordination

Also part of developing visual skills, eye-hand coordination is the ability of the hands and the eyes to work together to function and perform tasks, such as catching a ball or tying a shoelace.

Early Maths

During puzzle play, children learn to see patterns and shapes, in the pieces as well as in the complete picture.

Shape recognition is an important aspect of geometry, and patterns can be found in almost all mathematical concepts.

Attention Span

Have you ever noticed that when a child puts a jigsaw puzzle together they are sitting still for a few minutes longer than usual and they appear to be lost in what they are doing?

This activity is an excellent one for getting a child to focus all their attention, without getting distracted, and it’s one that can slowly train a child to concentrate for longer and longer periods.