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Any other preschoolers terrible at puzzles?


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I got my 4.5 year old daughter a few new 25 piece puzzles today. She eventually gave up, saying "They make puzzles because they want kids to be bored."

 

She's pretty bright, but apparently not very good at spatial reasoning (DH can't do a puzzle to save his life, either). Even if I tell her a piece is an edge piece, she doesn't "get" that they edges have to go in a straight line, and when she finally gets a piece, it's either by luck or after exhausting all the other options.

 

Any ideas on how to help her learn the critical thinking and spatial reasoning skills she needs to do them?

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One of my daughters has always been kind of "challenged" when it comes to puzzles. She turned out to have a significant vision problem and needed vision therapy.

 

I considered this, because her father can't even find his glasses if he's not wearing them, but she doesn't seem to have any other vision problems. I'll keep a watch out for it, though.

 

Use puzzles with less peices, less complicated edges, and less colors.

 

An inexpensive way is to take magazine pictures, paste on cardstock, and then cut into 4 or 6 peices. Move up in complexity when she's ready.

I really like this idea. I have a few old issues of Family Circle with lots of pictures of cakes that would work perfectly!

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When dd was that age I'd help her see how the pieces fit together. We had a couple of large floor puzzles. We'd start with any piece and I'd point out (for the one with sea creatures) that this piece looked like part of a starfish and that she needed to find the rest of the starfish. Then we'd look at the other pieces one at a time. I'd actually hold them up and ask if she thought this piece was the other part. And go one by one. When the correct piece was found (you might have to point out the correct one if she doesn't choose it when it comes up) she then had to figure out how to fit it together. I showed her that the outie parts had to fit in an innie and also that the parts of the starfish had to go together. We did this a number of times and it was months before she was able to pull the puzzle out and do it herself. We didn't work on it everyday, though. Maybe every couple of weeks or so.

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I had to start my son on MUCH fewer pieces. I made a few of my own simple puzzles and found some simple 10-15 piece puzzles. He still only does the 25 piece ones once in awhile and he is 5. My dd on the other hand was doing 100 piece puzzles by the time she was 5.5. He's slowly catching up in that area.

 

I would suggest to start smaller with your girlie. 25 is a lot of pieces to start with.

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I have a child who had, and has, puzzle issues.

He did need, and benefit from, vision therapy (this is different than can't see 20/20--it's how the eyes move, focus, etc--COVD.org will have optometrists who assess for these issues). However, the vision therapy did not make him good at puzzles. I do think he has spatial reasoning issues outside of vision stuff.

 

I didn't find a solution. He's never had an interest in puzzles so to get him to focus long enough to learn to work one is hard. He's not good at focusing on what doesn't interest him. However, I wanted to mention that I had purchased these puzzles that graduated in difficulty. I can't for the life of me remember the company who made them. I'll see if I can find them here and report back if I can.

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My middle child was never very good at puzzles (and i'll admit, I dont think i ever managed to get any out for my youngets? :001_huh: ) . . . he also didnt have the patience to sit through a board game until . . .um, this year.

 

My non-puzzle kid won't sit through a board game either unless it's extremely quick.

 

I see 2E...do you think special needs has anything to do with it? My son is special needs and I wonder how it all factors vs. personality.

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My non-puzzle kid won't sit through a board game either unless it's extremely quick.

 

I see 2E...do you think special needs has anything to do with it? My son is special needs and I wonder how it all factors vs. personality.

 

So hard to know! My son has like 8 or 10 different things diagnosed by 8 or 10 different specialists . . . i've kinda given up on figuring it out. I just focus on what is the most urgent thing to work on, and figure out how to make that work smoothly, and move on to the next one.

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I got my 4.5 year old daughter a few new 25 piece puzzles today. She eventually gave up, saying "They make puzzles because they want kids to be bored."

 

She's pretty bright, but apparently not very good at spatial reasoning (DH can't do a puzzle to save his life, either). Even if I tell her a piece is an edge piece, she doesn't "get" that they edges have to go in a straight line, and when she finally gets a piece, it's either by luck or after exhausting all the other options.

 

Any ideas on how to help her learn the critical thinking and spatial reasoning skills she needs to do them?

 

My 4.5 year old daughter is exactly the same way. We went through this this morning. I think it's something that just has to click. Either help out or get smaller puzzles. THat's what I have to do.

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