Catherine and I had bought several puzzles for Darius since some time back, including those wooden ones where he could match the pieces to the corresponding slots based on their shapes. We had also gotten him those that came in sets of three rectangular pieces which could be placed side by side to form an animal.

Unfortunately, none of these really caught his attention and these puzzles ended up getting abandoned by him on one side of his toy shelf. To be fair, he did show some interest in the animal puzzle pieces but guess what he did? He simply ‘hide’ them underneath his Pooh Bear playmat whenever he got his hands onto the pieces. There was even a short period when he would whine to get us to pass him the pieces, so that he could slot them under the mat. Really baffles us where he had learnt to do this. ^^|

So after so many ‘failed’ attempts to introduce him to puzzle solving, what is so special with this puzzle that can finally catch his attention and interest?

One thing we know, Darius has always been very interested in alphabets. Unfortunately, we have not been able to come across any nice puzzle that are made up of them. So when we spotted this puzzle at a toy shop in Parkway Parade last weekend, we knew we had to get it for Darius, especially when he was already showing a lot of interest in the box alone. ^^

Since Darius’ exposure to jigsaw puzzles (and even puzzles in general) have been very limited due to his lack of interest in them, this puzzle should help improve his fine motor skills and logical thinking in puzzle solving. We had also hoped that with the big and colourful alphabets on each piece of this puzzle, it would help keeping him concentrate long enough to at least successfully complete a few puzzle pieces (we are not setting high goals after knowing his past history with puzzles ^^|).

Back home the next day, when we were placing the puzzle box on our sofa for phototaking, Darius was already getting very impatient and kept wanting to get close so he could pick up the box and examine it, while pointing at the alphabets and sounding each letter out. ^^

Darius was captivated by the box

We started off by laying out the pieces for the first row of the puzzle on the floor: Letters ‘a’ to ‘g’. We then guided Darius’ hands so he could place the pieces correctly, followed by gentle taps so that the pieces would fit in firmly. With every successful placement, he would smile and clap his hands to congratulate himself. Also upon completing a complete row, he would trace his fingers from the first piece to the last while sounding out each of the alphabets.

Placing the puzzle pieces...

...and congratulating himself!

When it was time to build the next row (‘h’ to ‘m’), Darius kept wanting to place the ‘h’ piece beside ‘g’, which was technically correct but unfortunately in this case, ‘h’ belongs to the next row so we had to guide his hand again so he knew where to place it.

To avoid confusion in him and making things easier however, we shifted the first row of ‘a’ to ‘g’ away so that he could form an independent row of ‘h’ to ‘m’ instead. This had indeed helped him in focusing on a single row and thus allowing him to complete a row easier.

When the entire 26 pieces were finally put in place (with our help too along the way), Darius started moving around while squatting to reach the alphabet piece that he is interested in and then sounding it out.

Meanwhile, I will try to make it a point to introduce him to this puzzle every night, though I must admit it’s not that easy to keep him focused throughout the entire puzzle as most of the time, he will just get distracted halfway and run off to do something else. Guess that’s how toddlers usually behave, right? ^^|

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