Puzzles for toddlers can be fun and entertaining on a rainy day. Are there any benefits of puzzles for child development beyond keeping your little one entertained?
Benefits of Puzzles for Toddlers’ Development
There are many benefits of playing puzzle games. Puzzles for toddlers build a child’s gross and fine motor skills. Puzzles help toddlers with shape recognition. As your toddler sees different puzzle shapes and places them in the puzzle, your child builds hand-eye coordination.
Are there memory benefits of playing puzzle games? The answer is yes! Puzzles also build a child’s logical thinking through the exercise of matching. Puzzles strengthen your child’s cognitive skills, which serve as a foundation for thinking, reading, learning, and more.
Puzzles also help children practice social skills and language skills. If a child is looking for a missing puzzle piece, ask the child to describe the puzzle piece to encourage using language.
Long-Term Benefits of Puzzles for Child Development
The benefits of bringing home puzzles for toddlers go beyond a child’s preschool years. Playing with puzzles as a toddler will help your child in the classroom and when your child grows up to be an adult.
Other benefits of playing puzzle games include learning how to adapt, patience, persistence, problem solving, and abstract thinking. How often in our adult lives do we need one of these skills? A simple activity like a puzzle can help instill these ideas in children at a young age.
Puzzles encourage children to look not only at what they see but also what is missing from the picture. Puzzles practice how to think in the abstract. Puzzles for toddlers are self-correcting learning tools. Preschoolers can see mistakes and correct them on their own instead of needing a grownup.
Finding Age-Appropriate Puzzles for Toddlers
Not all puzzles are alike. There are some puzzles for preschoolers and other puzzles for older kids! If you want to find a puzzle for your preschooler, start with puzzle activities that have fewer, larger pieces.
Toys like puzzles for toddlers must be certified with a Children’s Product Certificate by a third party. To learn more about toy safety, visit the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Helping Preschoolers Learn at Toddler Town
At Toddler Town and Toddler Town Daycare Too, we help your child learn and grow with fun, educational, and age-appropriate activities. Our curriculum offers physical activities and intellectual challenges for your little brainiac.
Our dedicated staff prepares toddlers for kindergarten by teaching manners, self-control, how to be around other children. We cultivate a sense of curiosity and joy in learning to set your child up for academic success!
Contact us to enroll your child in our Chicago child care or Evanston child care locations today!
