How to Choose Wooden Jigsaw Puzzles
and Other Puzzles for Preschoolers

So it's a good idea to get your preschooler this toy as many as you can afford.

But, before you shop, I'd like tell you how to choose an appropriate preschooler's jigsaw puzzle, so you don't waste your money buying wrong products.

First, I strongly recommend to get wooden jigsaw puzzles for your preschooler since they are sturdy. In addition, many of the wooden puzzles have pegs or knobs. These type of puzzles, known as peg puzzles or knob puzzles are easy to handle and therefore are highly recommended for very young preschoolers. Older preschoolers, however, will find it easy to deal with wooden puzzles with no pegs or knobs.

The other possibility is to buy foam jigsaw puzzles. They are quite sturdy if treated properly. However, they are chewable. They also do not come with pegs or knobs and I find that fitting the pieces onto the board and taking the pieces out from the board can be a challenge for young preschoolers. In contrast, it is very easy to put the pieces of wooden jigsaw puzzles onto the board and take these off. I also recommend to reserve the cardboard jigsaw puzzles for older children (school-age, or at least kindergartner) because older children will 'treat' the cardboard pieces properly.

Second, there are 2 more things which have to be beared in mind when choosing a wooden jigsaw puzzle for your preschooler:

• Easiness of matching the pieces.
• Number of pieces.

So what's an ideal wooden puzzle for preschoolers ?

• Preschoolers still needs wooden puzzles with considerably big pieces.
• Preschoolers can start having single- piece jigsaw puzzle with no corresponding picture on the board. However, the puzzle should have pieces with distinctive shape. For instance, triangle, circle, and square are distinctive enough for a preschooler to distinguish.
• If you buy your preschooler a wooden jigsaw puzzle which has more than one piece (ideally around 3-10 pieces per puzzle), consider to buy the one with either of one of these following features:
  
  
  • has a picture on the pieces as well as on the board for easiness of matching.
  • has a picture of familiar figure, for instance: dogs, cats,and so forth. It is easier for a preschooler to complete a jigsaw puzzle when they are familiar with the end product.
  • has pieces with easy-to-distinguished-features for easiness of matching.
    Therefore I recommend a jigsaw puzzle which has each piece representing each body parts, such as tail, head, body, etc;instead of the one which has pieces with two half body part on each piece.

In addition to jigsaw puzzle, you may also want to consider getting a cube wooden puzzle for your preschoolers for further matching activities.

Happy shopping !!

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More on jigsaw puzzle:

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Other kind of wooden puzzles: cube wooden puzzle .
This article shows you how to buy wooden cube puzzles.

Tips and advice for storing jigsaw puzzle
Contains tips and advice for storing wooden puzzle (including knob and peg puzzle) and cardboard jigsaw puzzle.

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