Puzzling behaviour

About ten days ago, the Monday evening after the weekend Mustang had flu, I took out the 1000-piece ocean life puzzle I’ve had lurking around for the past six years or so and dumped it out onto a table in my bedroom. The kids helped me spread out the pieces and then started to pick out some of the coloured pieces and fit a few together with great gusto, while I continued turning over the pieces and spreading them out so there would be no overlap.

I told them then, and repeated it several times, that this was a hard puzzle with lots of pieces and they shouldn’t expect to get it done in one evening – in fact, it would probably take a couple of weeks to put together. I also said not to let themselves get frustrated if it wasn’t going quickly and they couldn’t find pieces to fit together – just take a break, go away for a few minutes or hours, and come back later to do a bit more work on it. I said this was the kind of puzzle that takes a long time even for grown-ups to do, and if they found it too difficult, well not to worry. They could work on it or not, whatever they wanted. But both of them were keen.

One evening later that week, after they were asleep, I searched out all the edge pieces I could find and worked on the border, getting almost all of it put together (on a little card table next to the table containing the spread-out pieces, as it wasn’t big enough for everything!). The kids noticed this first thing the next morning and were keen to do some more work themselves. They picked out some more of the pieces of brightly coloured fish and got a few more bits put together.

Bit by bit over the last ten days we’ve all worked on it and slowly it has come together. All that remains now are the shades of blue – bluish fish, bluish dolphins with some white streaks across their backs, and plain water. Laolao and Laoye have chipped in with bits and pieces, but most of it has been done by me and the kids, particularly Button (who has more time in the day to work on it).

I’m quite impressed by Button’s persistence and patience, and his improved puzzle skills. Even just a month or two back, he would frequently pick up totally inappropriate pieces (wrong colour, wrong shape) and try to fit them in somewhat randomly. But with all the puzzles we’ve done recently, he’s starting to pay more attention to colour and shape – picking out the pieces with three or four “outies” or “innies” where that’s what is needed, noticing the slight variations in shading that make a piece appropriate or not, searching for (and finding!) the right piece based on which part of it should be a given colour and what markings it ought to show as judged by the picture – and popping them into place!

Mustang, too, is showing improved puzzle skills along the same lines, though she was already better at puzzles than Button if for no other reason than being older (and further along developmentally). Recently, her greatest areas of improvement have been her patience with puzzles and interest in them – important factors in and of themselves not just for puzzle work but for many areas of endeavour, including academics.

I think one of our next puzzle purchases might include a 500-piecer – not quite as big and challenging as the one we’ve almost finished, but still enough to keep us going for a few days.