Jigsaw Puzzles - what age . . . ?

[SKL]

I would like to hear from the whole range of people here. How old was your child when s/he could do a 60-piece puzzle in a sitting? 100-piece? I feel my eldest is behind the curve on this but I want a sanity check. (Wondering if this indicates an area to work on in vision therapy this summer.)

[OrganicAnn]

I was talking with my mom the other day about jig saw puzzles and she said that some kids love them and some don't. I was asking since we have an only child and was wondering why she didn't seem interested in jigsaw puzzles anymore. She liked them at about 5.

 

So I wouldn't worry about it.

 

We've done vision therapy, but our concern was more directed to reading.

[Rosie_0801]

Dd could do 60 piece at age 4, but didn't really want to. She's 6 now and can want to do 60 piece puzzles, but has never got as far as 100. Her interests moved to other areas. :)

[Outdoorsy Type]

Oldest 3

 

Middle 5ish

 

Youngest 4

 

It had more to do with personality in our case. Middle son would still prefer to draw or work with modeling clay. They do puzzles 3-4x a week while I read our literature or while listening to audiobooks.

 

Edited to add: they really don't enjoy puzzles without a story to listen to. You might try adding music or audio books to puzzle time.

[SKL]

I am just concerned because my dd doesn't seem to be noticing some things that seem kind of obvious. For example, being able to tell which are "side pieces," or not trying to connect the straight sides to a piece that isn't straight. She was able to put it together but it was rather painstaking, with a lot of trial and error. She doesn't do many puzzles (doesn't like them much), but some things ought to be obvious to a 6yo I'd think.

[Rosie_0801]

My dd went from being unable to do 2 piece puzzles to happily doing 50 pieces in a year. She really, really, really wanted to, and I sat there and assisted for as long as I could without self combusting. Sometimes she wanted to put in 8 hour days at it (really beyond my patience levels, ugh!)

 

If I were you, I'd go back and "remediate" with 35-45 piece puzzles, with larger pieces. My dd, when she was nearing the end of her devoted phase, could do 50 piece puzzles happily if the pieces were large, but struggled if they were small.

[Chris in VA]

OMG, can I just say that I HATE puzzles? When I taught preschool, and we had to clean up, I made the kids do all the puzzles. In the 3yo classroom. 6-15 piecers. *shudder*

 

But they are very good for you.

 

I'm not big on cooked vegetables, either...just sayin'...

[LMD]

oooh I love puzzles.

 

My 2.5y/o can easily do 20 piece puzzles (on his own) and he has done up to 50 pieces, the main problem is his attention span rather than ability.

 

My olders were doing 100 piece puzzles at 4.

 

I would suggest carefully selecting the puzzle. When we moved to 100 pieces I chose puzzles that had very clear pictures with obvious Top and Bottom elements, like this one: http://www.amazon.co...f=cm_cr_pr_pb_i - it has the alphabet in white around the edges, so it really helped cement the 'edge pieces first' idea.

 

eta - I think some kids are more into puzzles than others. I also think there is an element of learning style that affects how they attempt it too - eg. whole to parts (sees the big picture from the box and completes it systematically) or parts to whole (sees the elements on the pieces and tries to match them).

[HomeschoolMamaOfTwo]

DD - Both 60 & 100 at 4

DS - 60 around 5, 100 at 6

 

DD enjoys puzzles much more than DS.

[Irene Lynn]

Our dd was not good with puzzles or any hands-on spatial skills. She was very intelligent and could analyze anything. Her internal spatial skills were good, too. Because she was so sharp at so many things, it threw me for a loop when she would try to do a puzzle and seem totally clueless. I mean, seriously, the edge cannot face inward! If she were not looking at and handling a puzzle piece, she could have told me all about the puzzle, then would go "brain dead" once a few pieces were in front of her. I also noted that she could not mimic body positioning either. She was coordinated on her own, but if you told her to "do this" with her body, it was not pretty. As a part of her school day I started to incorporate a few "mimic this body position" type of things and forced her (LOL She thought it was torture and her friends thought she had it made.) to make small Lego or K'NEX models.

 

Doing hands-on type of puzzles are still not fun for her, though she is much better now at nearly 20 yrs. old. When she was 17, I took her for some professional aptitude testing. It was very obvious in the testing. Her spatial skills were drastically different from each other. She is actually very strong at flipping things in her head or doing any of those IQ type tests, but her hands-on spatial skills were quite low. We also found out that her scanning ability was really low. Aptitude testing just shows what her innate ability is, though anything can be strengthened through practice.

 

I say all of that to give you an idea of a possible reason for someone who appears plenty intelligent and yet is rather delayed at this type of skill. I would encourage you to observe her to see if there are any other activities (like our dd's inability to mimic body positioning) that might represent the same area of the brain. I am thankful that I had dd do some of the exercises that I did, but I wish I had been more consistent with them. She hated doing them, so it was easy to stop. I would not make it too hard, but rather focus on consistent, gentle practice. I probably pushed her a little too hard. It would have been better to do small exercises, make them fun, and keep them going for a long time. It was just hard to drop down as far as she needed in this one area. She was so quick at everything else, I just kept thinking it would suddenly click in there. Of course, hindsight is clearer. The aptitude testing was a relief to us both.

[Mama Geek]

Dd turns 3 in 1 1/2 months. She can easily do 36 piece puzzles and can work the 60 piece puzzles with help. I think if she really wanted to do it by herself she could, she just isn't convinced yet that she can. She has been able to distinguish between inside and outside pieces for several months.

[Cinder]

I am just concerned because my dd doesn't seem to be noticing some things that seem kind of obvious. For example, being able to tell which are "side pieces," or not trying to connect the straight sides to a piece that isn't straight. She was able to put it together but it was rather painstaking, with a lot of trial and error. She doesn't do many puzzles (doesn't like them much), but some things ought to be obvious to a 6yo I'd think.

 

 

My dd didn't get this at 6yo either--side pieces, this piece has part of a starfish so we need to find a piece with the other part. (These were simple puzzles that didn't have complicated pictures to them.) I had to point such things out to her each time we did the puzzle and it was more months before she could do it by herself. I think she finally got it right about when she turned 7, though.

 

ETA: Dd has no vision or other learning issues.

[SKL]

Wow, what an interesting range. I'll give my daughter some more practice with easy puzzles and see if she gets those concepts on her own.