Puzzles make learning fun

Games and puzzles are important because they are excellent tools in developing good learning situations at home. Children respond and learn to do new and profitable things with puzzles and games.

My four-year-old has always loved solving jigsaw puzzles, so I thought a good world map jigsaw puzzle would be the ideal way to introduce him to different continents and countries and the different aspects of culture.

I bought him a 61x92cm foam world map jigsaw. Initially when I put my son to work on the puzzle, he made many hits and misses and he wanted to give up. Each time I mentioned the world puzzle, he would dread it.

Then, I had an idea. Since he loves watching animated movies, why not relate the movies to countries and continents? So, I started with Ultraman from Japan, The Wiggles from Australia, Penguins from Arctic, Buzz Lightyear and Woody are from the United States, Kung Fu Panda from China, Rio from Brazil and the list goes on ….

Voila! He then learnt to put the puzzle together rapidly. Not only was he able to assemble the puzzle faster, but he could also associate animals and flags, too.

One day, an aunt asked my son what he would like to do when he grows up. His answer was: “I would like to be a world explorer and once I am finished with the world then I am going to Saturn in my spaceship.”

Numbers were never my son’s favourite until we started playing Snakes and Ladders. This is such an excellent game to teach the association of number to quantity, counting the numbers forward and backward. My son was able to visualise the progression from 1 to 100. He realised it takes lots of dice throws to reach 100.

The addition and subtraction concept were introduced subtly. Numbers are fun now. We have our massage game where we take turns to massage each other’s head. First I would massage him counting one to 50 with each press of the hand, and then it would be his turn to do the same, counting the numbers aloud.

Of course, he does have a tendency to cheat me by pressing 20 times but counting one to 50 as fast as he can!

Kevin Doshi