Just had a great day doing a jigsaw puzzle with second son. It was one of those "Where's Stig?" jigsaws - lots of details and things to make you laugh, and we thoroughly enjoyed working on it together.
I think jigsaw puzzles are great. They really make you pay attention to details, observe carefully and hold images in your head - all good habits to have. This one was 1000 pieces, and we did manage it in one day, but the last one we did took 3 days - there's a real element of persistence in doing something complicated like this.
I took some of the old jigsaws that second son had grown out of into my classroom recently - the children (between 9 and 13 years old) were on the whole quite stumped by them once they got over 50 pieces. I couldn't find a single one who ever did anything like it at home. They had very few strategies to approach the puzzle (none of them thought about doing the straight edges first, or collecting all the pieces of an obvious feature), and if they couldn't do it in a few minutes were very reluctant to keep going.
I think I'll be taking more puzzles into school with me - what a fun way to train your brain!
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