Great Gifts For Visual And Kinesthetic Learners: Puzzles

If you have a visual learner, or a tactile learner, or both, puzzles make great gifts for any occasion!

Puzzles are one of the best gifts for kids from all walks of life. Whether educational themed, or character themed, puzzles give children something productive to do. For the young, a puzzle is a great manipulative toy, with wooden pieces allowing children to develop spatial skills, as well as assisting them in identifying patterns, colors, and shapes. For older children, larger puzzles and smaller pieces do much the same thing, developing those same spatial skills to a more refined level. Shapes become more intricate, patterns more complex. As an educational resource for the kinesthetic or visual learner, puzzles are wonderful tools, a must! And don't discount the auditory learner. While there are no audio aspects of a traditional puzzle, put a little music on in the background, and putting together a puzzle can be an enjoyable activity.

When choosing puzzles for toddlers, look for simple ones. Wooden puzzles, such as Melissa and Doug Wooden Puzzles, are a great choice, as they are sturdy. Particularly with toddlers, puzzle pieces can be seen as a chew toy, and a cardboard puzzle piece doesn't stand a chance. Look for simply shaped pieces, easy to place. In fact, for your toddlers, the best puzzles are those in which each piece is placed in a space that exactly fits the piece. These may be vehicle themed, shape themed, or animal themed. There is no need to figure out how several pieces fit together, but rather, simple shape recognition.

 For the pre-school aged child, a more involved puzzle may be more appropriate, as a child can manipulate pieces a little better, and problem solve to figure out which pieces belong together.  These may be wooden or cardboard puzzles with frames, which assist a child in correct placement of pieces.  There are also puzzles with large pieces in small quantities, often with favorite characters such as Dora and Diego.  These allow older pre-schoolers, and even early elementary school children, to learn the difference between edge pieces and interior pieces, all the while working with more detail in shape, color, and pattern.

 Puzzles for children in elementary school will continue to increase in size of puzzle and number of pieces, while piece size will become smaller, and at times, more complex.  Look for favorite characters or themes, but also, use this as an educational opportunity, with puzzles which emphasize places, history, literature, or art. 

My elementary-aged children are often very interested in the 1,000 piece puzzles of their older siblings, and are capable of helping to put such puzzles together, when everyone helps.  I don't think they would probably have as much success on their own, but in conjunction with siblings, this is a great family venture, totally adaptable to include the various age groups.  While my youngest children are not very successful in helping with such puzzles, older siblings will often include the younger ones, showing them where to place a given piece, and allowing the younger brother or sister to put it in place.

 My tweens and teens love puzzles, and it's good to have a large area to dedicate to putting puzzles togethers.  In our home, sometimes this is a large square coffee table, sometimes it's a round table in our television/activity room.  The puzzle may take days to solve, or perhaps only hours, depending on who helps, and on the complexity of the puzzle.  It's fun to be able to come back to it, without having to put it away. 

Again, favorite themes are great choices.  My oldest loves anything to do with The Lord of The Rings, or with The Chronicles of Narnia, and there are some great puzzles along that line.  Some of the older children love artsy puzzles.  For my teen son, Star Wars is a favorite. 

At this age, too, complex puzzles such as two-sided puzzles, or 3 dimensional puzzles, are a great challenge. These may seem tough, but many times, those challenges spur my older kids to see if they can do it. Another favorite and fun challenge is a puzzle which contains a multitude of small, similarly shaped items, whether candies, or other things.

While traditional puzzles are a blast, your kinesthetic learners and visual learners will also enjoy such physical puzzle toys as the Rubik's Cube. My brother was a champ, and could sove a Rubik's Cube in no time flat. I never got beyond one or two sides. Still, these types of toys are great means of providing spatial activity, and developing problem solving skills informally.

Tangrams are a favorite puzzle toy in the world of math education, and these can be really enjoyable for kids to explore with, making different figures of the shapes. There are also sets of puzzle cards, which challenge a child to match a given pattern.

My Mom and I both used Crazy Puzzles in our math classrooms as activities for children who finished their work early, or to entertain those who arrived early for school. My own children have several, and really enjoy attempting to solve them.

Crazy puzzles are 9 piece puzzles, each based on a them, with a repeated shape in different colors, front and back. The object is to correctly place so that all pieces are touching matching pieces in a 3x3 grid. It's not easy, but it's a fun challenge. There are Crazy Planes, Crazy Cats, Crazy Bugs, and more. They are tough to find these days, but are great stocking stuffers if you can find them. Try and educational store!

You can find the latest releases, the top selling, and best rated puzzles on Amazon's sales lists.