Throughout the first week of school, everyday the children have been taking out the same box that has three puzzles in it. Calen encourages new friends to join him everyday as he has been very determined to complete all three puzzles. Calen, Lucas, Theo and Andrew have been working together to complete all of the puzzles, one at a time. The children have demonstrated enthusiasm and determination.
On the first day of school in the afternoon, Calen brought the box of puzzles to the carpet and Lucas joined him. The children began discussing their first day of school together as they worked on completing one of the puzzles. L
ucas suggested that they look at the colours on each puzzle board to try and find puzzle pieces that match the colour scheme. As they began working on that together and sorting the puzzle pieces by colour, Calen noticed that some puzzle pieces had images on it that made it easy to identify which puzzle board it belongs to and where it goes, such as the puzzle piece with a dog’s ear and part of the eye. They then began to sort through the pieces and determine which pieces they recognized belonged to each board. The children connected with each other by discussing how their day went and sharing details with each other about their new teachers, new friends in their classrooms and their new routines, while also multitasking and connecting in a different way as they were sharing their ideas and trying each other’s methods to achieve the same outcome by solving the puzzle together.
The children strategically sorted out the pieces, looking at the puzzle boards and identifying what pictures they are seeing in each piece to determine whether it belongs to puzzle one, two or three. As the children have been working on this for many days in a row, they have strengthened their memorization skills and problem-solving techniques. The children have begun to memorize which pieces fit together and where they go on the board as they restart their progress with placing the puzzle pieces on the boards each day.
Working on puzzles has strengthened many of the children’s cognitive skills. They have demonstrated strong problem-solving skills as they experiment with trial and error, testing out where the pieces might fit.
The children have also developed hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills as they manipulate the small pieces, rotate them to see which way they fit in the puzzle and push the puzzle pieces into their spots.
Completing puzzles has provided a wonderful opportunity for the children to connect and make new friends as we have been welcoming new children in our classroom this week.
The children have also demonstrated patience and persistence as they return to the puzzles everyday and start over, remembering what pieces they had matched the day before but taking on the challenge of finding new pieces that fit.
Finishing a puzzle provides children with a strong sense of accomplishment and promotes positive self-esteem as they reflect on their progress and feel proud that they were able to match all of the pieces and complete the puzzle.
Overall the play with puzzles has encouraged the children to engage in a fun and meaningful activity and build their cognitive, emotional and social skills. This interest has also helped to build the children’s confidence in themselves, cooperative skills and relationships with one another. The children have developed new friendships over the course of the week as they have made their own project together with the puzzles, with the goal being to solve all three puzzles. The children have developed strong memorization skills, excellent problem-solvingskills and great communication skills as they share their ideas and listen to their peers’ ideas. As the children continue to show enthusiasm towards puzzles, we will continue to provide them with new puzzles, find new ways to communicate our ideas, search for more strategies to solve puzzles, create puzzles that need to be solved using other materials and develop their problem-solving skills in new ways. We plan to create our very own puzzles using various materials!
