picture puzzles for skill building

For my family, and my friend's family, assembling picture puzzles is a holiday, non-competitive sport that doesn't involve screens - what's not to like?

We started at an early age with not just kids puzzles, but with building alongside adults, adult puzzles.  In those days, there weren't that many around, so rebuilding once a year was a thing we were known to do if we had a week of rain!

But let's consider the permaculture skills we can build and support through just 3 puzzle building skills:

1. Colour and tone recognition and matching.

2. Attention to detail.

3. Shape recognitions.

And some permaculture skills: Plant ID (1, 2, 3), Insect ID (1,2,3), Repairing equipment (2, 3), Planning gardens/plantings (1, 2, 3) etc

And some living skills: Sewing (1, 2, 3), Cooking j(1, 2, 3), Schooling (1, 2, 3)

So I just thought I'd put a plug in for parents not to overlook this fun way to support skill building even on the holidays. Just because it's fun, doesn't mean it isn't a valuable resource!

Like math and dancing, I have always struggled with puzzles. My 8 yo likes to do puzzles sometimes, and I am glad to consider all those benefits for her brain that you listed above. Jigsaw puzzles take patience, careful attention, and keenness of observation, wonderful things to develop in a growing person. It is a wonderful screen-free activity for Winter, thanks for pointing it out!

Ah-ha  lightglobe moment - Tangrams.  Set of shapes that can be assembled into all sorts of images.  Also could be crafted in wood by anyone handy enough with the tools.  Count me out, I keep away from sharp objects. Also on-line versions for the non-tactile. To get started:-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangram    ( and were are lots of other images of how the pieces work when I did the search to get the spelling correct).

I've always liked jig-saws though.

I love jigsaws! Non-competitive? Who else had problems with their sisters hiding the last piece so they could do it?!

I still do that to my mother in law :P

Hi, jigsaw puzzles were a great sanity saver while I was in rehab after an accident. I would do them in the common room and others would come in and some would help, so the puzzles let to some socialization- good for all of us. Rehab is very isolating.

We are puzzle fanatics. I still have some of the puzzles I used to do with my grandmother 30 years ago. When we had the space, it was not uncommon to have a puzzle set out that we would all work on over the course of several days. Now we have to do them on large plastic trays (one is from the bottom of a dog crate) and slide them under the sofa.

I got my older daughter, 14, who is the most obsessed, a couple 1000/2000 piecers for Christmas. One of them was the "tree of life" with all the evolutionary branches. Yesterday I heard the younger one, 9, telling her older sister, "you're just an odd-toed ungulate!" So yes, they can be educational! 😂

One type we never do is photographic puzzles. I guess maybe because the photos are usually fairly boring, like what you'd see on the free calendar from the nature conservancy. There's a lot of really cool puzzle art out there though. Growing up with grandma it was mainly Charles Wysocki - I just ❤️ the simple little figures and all the farm animals!

j flynn wrote:Hi, jigsaw puzzles were a great sanity saver while I was in rehab after an accident. I would do them in the common room and others would come in and some would help, so the puzzles let to some socialization- good for all of us. Rehab is very isolating.

I had this experience too! Puzzles are a great social activity!

It's a skill that can be developed with practice. My friends sister in law does a 1000 piece puzzle in an hour every morning before work. Part of her routine to keep sharp! (It's a miracle to me.)

I'm a jigsaw addict and usually have one in some stage of completion on my 8-ft dining table which is seldom used for dining.  Usually they are 1,000 piece or larger.  I have one that is 3,000 pieces that I do about every 5 years or so.  That one takes me about a month of "spare" time, and like a favorite movie, I don't mind that it's a rerun.

I think doing puzzles keeps my mind sharp.  There's sorting by color or pattern; spatial relations, i.e., looking for pieces the right shape and size; manual dexterity handling and turning small pieces; visual acuity; patience building and other emotional training, like handling frustration.

Then, as one of the posters mentioned, there's camaraderie if you work with other people.  I used to live in a large RV park in Texas that had a community library with 100's of jigsaw puzzles and a half-dozen long tables to work them on.  I'd hate it when anyone would mess with my puzzle, but now I enjoy doing them with a neighbor family with sometimes 4 or 5 people sitting around the table.  Each of us picks a section of the puzzle to work on, and we have a lot of laughs.  If we find a piece that doesn't go in the section we are working on, we try to figure out where it does go and pass it off to the appropriate person.  Frequently, they say, "Ah-ha, that's the very piece I've been searching for."  It's like we gave each other gifts.  Quite satisfying.

Molly Conomy wrote: Now we have to do them on large plastic trays (one is from the bottom of a dog crate) and slide them under the sofa.

Excellent point - my Daughter in Law and I were just discussing that issue. We made the mistake of starting a large puzzle on the dining room table without removing the table cloth and silencer first - bad plan! The puzzle wasn't fully locking pieces to begin with, and pieces kept coming loose.

I don't think the dog crate trays that I have are large enough for the puzzles in the queue, but I will check them with a tape measure, as that sounds like a good idea. I do use kitchen trays for sorting and doing portions of builds on, and both my sister and my friend have "cake lifters" which are a wide, flat metal spatula-like thing which are very helpful for moving sections of puzzle around. This would be more important for adult puzzles than smaller children's ones, but as Molly also wrote, her 14 year old is already working on large puzzles.

She Who Must Be Obeyed really enjoys jigsaw puzzles.

To address the moving aspect, we got this puzzle roll.  There are also puzzle caddies like a large thin briefcase.

We have a set of plastic scrapers that help us to move sections a bit, especially since the felt roll acts sort of sticky for the cardboard back of puzzle pieces.

Perhaps it is just my eyes or the lighting we have in the dining room, but I struggle quite a bit with glare on the puzzles.  I think it would be wonderful if puzzles had a matte finish to reduce glare, but that's just me.

We usually manage at least one puzzle over the holidays.  There is sometimes the conundrum that the puzzle roll still contains an unfinished puzzle patiently awaiting completion.

My sister and our Mum were fanatics - for Christmas gifts, the only puzzles that were worth their time were the ones with the same picture printed on the front and back!  
It was either that, or we had to mix all the pieces of multiple puzzles into the same box.
Yes, one might call them competitive! But they sure loved the challenge!

I love puzzles, too. One summer when my son was really into Legos, he and his buddy would be busy with Legos all day, so I took over the spare room and built a 5000-pc puzzle on the wood floor. Possibly my best summer as an adult! I tried it again 2 years ago, but sitting on the floor all day now was too much for my old bones.

My table only fits 1000 piecers, usually. Someone in my neighborhood recently started a Little Free Puzzle Library. It's a perfect mile or so walk there, grab a new puzzle, leave an old one. I love it!

Glad to hear from so many puzzle enthusiasts!

My Grandad used to buy my mum and her brother a jigsaw at christmas every year. These were lovely post war hand cut plywood jigsaws. When we visited my Gran we used to gather round and do a puzzle together. One of the interesting things about these puzzles is that they didn't include a guide picture, so you just had a title to work from. To this day I still quite like doing puzzles without using the picture, which somehow seems like cheating! Another feature was that the cutter would include several 'whimsy' pieces that were non jigsaw shapes, like a boat or a squirrel.
These puzzles sometimes come up in vintage toy shops, but I'm lucky enough to be custodian of the family ones now.
Here's one on ebay:

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