Best Wood Puzzles for Toddlers

Let me start by saying that my daughter does do puzzles on the iPad and iPhone. But there is a huge difference between doing electronic puzzles and a physical jigsaw puzzle. You cannot substitute the experience of putting together a wooden puzzle with your own two hands.

With an app, your toddler just has to get the puzzle piece in the general area and the app will pop it into place for your child. But with a physical puzzle your toddler has to rotate and manipulate the piece to fit it into place. With jigsaw puzzles there is a three-dimensional element and he or she will have to lift some pieces to slide the tab of another into place. This does so much for the development of a child's fine motor skills. 

Although chunky puzzles are listed for toddlers aged two and up you can totally start introducing your child to these puzzles at 18 months (provided the pieces aren't too small). 

Chunky wood puzzles feature puzzle pieces that need to be fitted into their correct slot on the board. There is a picture for each piece in the slot to help aid your toddler. At first this will be a big challenge but your toddler will enjoy matching up the pieces with the correct picture and over time will develop the coordination to rotate the pieces and fit them correctly into place.

Many of the Melissa and Doug chunky puzzle pieces stand up on their own so your child can use them for make believe play as well. 

Once your little one has mastered the skill of putting together a simple jigsaw puzzle they are up for the next challenge, a more complex wooden puzzle.

The first thing to consider is the number of pieces. The 12 piece puzzles are labelled for kids 3 and up. For a child new to puzzles then this is accurate. But, if your child has been doing puzzles for a while then a 12 piece puzzle will be way too easy. 24 and 48 piece puzzles are perfect and challenging for toddlers 2.5 years and up. They will need some help and encouragement at first but before you know it they will be doing them on their own (and taking great pride in their accomplishment).

The Colors of the Puzzle. It's easy to obsess over the number of pieces per puzzle but I think the number of colors present in the puzzle plays a more important role in determining difficulty. A 24 piece puzzle with a variety of distinct colors separated into different areas will be much easier for a toddler than a 12 piece puzzle with varying shades of the same color.

We've recently purchased the Melissa and Doug 48 piece butterfly puzzle (shown below) for my 2.5 year old and she loves it. She's not yet able to complete it on her own but she enjoys putting it together and it makes for a fun family activity. I bet she'll have this puzzle mastered before she turns three.