From toddlers to adults, people love to solve puzzles. Puzzles are intriguing, the goal is clear and when you solve them, you get that sense of accomplishment that makes you feel good about yourself. Preschoolers can play with puzzles without even realizing how many skills they are developing. This happens because, in order to solve a puzzle of any kind, your child needs to stop and think about how to go about reaching her goal.

When using a board puzzle, she develops a strategy on how she will try to place each piece in the correct space in order to make all of the pieces fit. She uses her problem-solving skills by developing solutions in order to accomplish completing her goal, just as she will use these skills during the course of her adult life. Puzzles can also help a preschooler develop important cognitive skills. For example, when your child will is asked to take step-by-step direction, puzzles help him develop the ability to accomplish goals one step at a time and to understand why certain tasks need to be done in this manner.

They can also help your preschooler develop visual spatial awareness because of the many colors, shapes and themes they come in. For this activity, we used a puzzle to learn more about the magnificent tyrannosaurus rex!  There were six pieces, so each time your little one attempted to put the pieces together, he had to make sure that they all matched before he proceeded to add the next one.