Puzzle

The Benefit of Puzzles

Last Updated Nov 20, 2008 00:27 AM

Toys & Learning
The beneficial role of toys and games in your child's development are discussed in the following articles:

What are Toys and Games doing in a Library?
What Skills are Being Promoted When a Child is Having Fun Playing a Game?
The Benefit of Puzzles
What are Toys and Games Doing in a Library?
Playing games at any age has the potential to be a lot of fun and for children in particular there can be some real benefits. Playing games can be a fun and motivating way to learn and reinforce skills, can provide an opportunity for all the family to play together or to have "special time" with one child, and skills learnt and mastered at home can be played outside home at preschool, school, with friends. Playing a game can be useful as a reward and can provide the chance to praise a child for achievements such as taking turns and packing up well.

What Skills are Being Promoted When a Child is Having Fun Playing a Game?
Social Skills
Learning to take turns, coping with winning and losing, being patient.
Visual Skills
visual scanning, spot the difference, eye-hand coordination.
Organisational Skills
Setting up and packing away a game, following a task from beginning to end, concentrating, listening, following instructions, decision making, planning strategies, problem solving and logical reasoning.
Motor Skills
Fine motor skills when throwing dice, moving pieces, dealing, turning cards, and gross motor skills such as body awareness and balance.
Language Skills
Many games help to develop language skills, eye contact, making requests, naming and can provide the opportunity for a child to explain the game to another child.
The Bowen Library has many games for children, usually recommended for 3 years and up. Ravensburger produce some wonderful games for younger players and the library stocks a wide range of these. While each of these early games will promote most or all of the above skills, they will also concentrate on particular areas such as matching, using memory, colours, shapes, listening, counting and numbers, language, letters and words, visual discrimination, identifying parts of the body. Easy board games will introduce children to simple concepts of throwing a dice/manipulating a spinner and moving along a pathway to a goal. Board games for older children will require them to think of strategies and work with more complex rules.

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