Puzzles Games for Kids – Benefits and Ideas

Brainteasers and puzzles games for kids are a great idea. There are so many options – simple jigsawsfor toddlers and young kids, more complex jigsaws for older kids, crossword puzzles, riddles, word grid games and so much more. Research has shown that doing these puzzles are great for the brain and will benefit not only children but even adults of all ages.

Puzzles Games for Kids

Why puzzles games for kids are good

For a small child, puzzle games such as shape sorters can help enhance eye hand coordination. As the puzzles become more complex (peg puzzles and so on) they continue to help a child improve their fine motor skills.

Even the simplest jigsaw puzzles (such as a two to four piece scene for a small child) can help the child develop problem solving and reasoning skills. They make the child think and create associations between action and effect.

Many puzzle games for kids can be great educational tools – they can help children learn the alphabets, numbers, shapes, colors and a lot more. As a parent you can supervise the child’s play to offer more information about the numbers, alphabets, shapes and colors that your child is playing with, to improve learning and create relevance.

Then there is the fact that a child can experience a great sense of achievement at having finished a puzzle, particularly a challenging or difficult one. This can foster self-esteem and confidence in your child. Puzzles can be their own reward as a child completes them. They retain a child’s interest and encourage the child to take on more challenging levels of the puzzle.

Another of the benefits of puzzles games for kids is that they are fun for the child. The child develops new skills and learns without being conscious of it. Puzzles help develop cognitive skills of a child in a fun way, without conscious effort.

These games can be especially good for single children who have to find ways and means to keep themselves entertained in the absence of any siblings. Many puzzles can be done singly and will keep the child occupied without needing a playmate.

Then there is the fact that when children play puzzles games as a team or as part of cooperative play, this is a great way for the child to enhance social skills.

Puzzles games for kids – ideas and options

For very young children, stacking and nesting games can be the first thing to start with. Shape sorters, color differentiation and simple self-correcting jigsaws (a jigsaw puzzle to match letter to object is a good option for preschoolers) are great options for young children.

As a child grows older, the jigsaws can become more complex in terms of the scene depicted, the number of pieces and size.

Older school going children can start simple and then more complex crosswords, Sudoku puzzles, anagram games, Scrabble and so on. Even quiz games, strategy games and other board games can be great puzzles games for kids because they encourage thinking and hence cognitive and problem solving skills.

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