Nathan and his puzzles

Sometime this fall Nathan became enamoured with puzzles. He had received a few of the wooden ones with the pieces that are cut out and fit into the holes as gifts for his first birthday, and then for his second birthday he got a round floor puzzle and a wooden Cars puzzle, both with inter-locking pieces.

Both the floor puzzle and the Cars puzzle have about 12 pieces and he became proficient at each of them. A few weeks ago Peter bought him a 46-piece Thomas floor puzzle. He did really well with it his first attempt, although it requires him to stay on task for much longer than he has for previous puzzles. The section of tracks initially gave him a bit of trouble but now he can pretty much do it all on his own. Here he is after a successful completion ...


As a math-lover myself, I love to see him so involved in a puzzle and to see how he works through the placement of the pieces. Thankfully he talks to himself non-stop while he works so I get lots of insight into his thought processes :) Interestingly, I have noticed that his natural approach to puzzles is not the way adults would do it (or at least how I would do it). When faced with a jigsaw puzzle I first turn over all the pieces, then find the corners, then the edge pieces, etc ... He looks at the pieces until he finds something he recognizes - usually a face or main piece of one of the trains - and then looks for other pieces that go near that one. He's starting to recognize what corner an edge pieces are, but it has taken a him a long time to figure out that they are different from the centre ones. Maybe eventually he'll start using that information to help him solve the puzzles.

I think the 46 piece puzzle is about the right level of challenge for him right now. It is difficult for him, but not enough to be frustrating. It will be fun to see how his logic changes as he is able to do puzzles with more and more pieces.