Frame, corner, or just anywhere?

So what’s the best way to do a jigsaw puzzle? I usually get the box so that I can look at the picture. Once I’ve studied the picture, I start looking for the pieces for the frame. For me, it makes sense to do the puzzle with a frame.  That lets me know how much space I’m working with. Well, obviously there’s more than one way to do a puzzle and the thing with the picture and the frame, that’s my way not hers.

They say you should expose your child to blocks, manipulatives, and puzzles. All of these things are very helpful for developing a range of skills including: gross motor skills, fine motor skills, visual discrimination, and simple putting things together. Puzzles are fun, especially for little people. They’re another source of information about the world. With their blank slate, the first-stage puzzles are usually pictures of things that go together. They’re not puzzles in the sense of the 100 piece or the 500-piece puzzle, but they are puzzles in that they have shapes that go in certain places. Those are good for learning about objects, fruits, vegetables – they make them in different themes. Once we mastered those, we moved up to the 24-piece puzzle. They're also good for developing - fine motor skills, thinking skills, problem solving (where does this piece go?  why doesn't this fit in this space?).

Discovery - all techniques are created equal. It took me a while to learn that my technique – frame first and then section by section – made sense to me based on who knows what. It did not make sense to her. The more I tried to get her to do the frame first, the faster and more irrationally she seemed to approach the puzzle. She would pick up two pieces and snap them together. And there I was asking her and myself “How did you do that?” Give her pieces and she’d ignore them. She obviously knew what she was looking for and how she was determining which pieces went together. Her eyes and body language said, “Mother, let me do this my way ‘cause it really is working for me.”

Discovery – sometimes their technique really is better than yours. Maybe better isn’t the right word. It’s simply their technique and it’s working. Try as we might to get her to use the picture, start with the frame, or do one corner of the puzzle, she always used some other technique. Over time, we realized that her eye for detail allowed her to look at the puzzle pieces in ways that we couldn’t.  Much like how she was viewing the movie “The Sound of Music” (see earlier blog entry: Do you see what I see?). Who picks up a piece with a white circle and recognizes that it’s part of the stove in the Hello Kitty kitchen puzzle?

I’m sure there will be some places where I will have to insist on a more accurate technique. But, doing puzzles at 3 is not that place. She does the puzzles from any starting point…another indication that her mind’s eye sees things differently from mine.  It's not wrong, not right, not better just her chosen technique.  It’s also another piece of information for me…when in doubt, try to understand how she is processing, receiving, or experiencing the information. Working from that starting point, I’m better equipped to help her with each new puzzle that shows up in pre-school, kindergarten, first grade, and any where else in the life journey.

Frame, corner, or just anywhere? In the canvas of life, some things have to be sequential...some dont'.  If you’re doing construction there’s a right way and a wrong way. If you’re doing puzzles at 3 and 4 years old, it’s really just about YOUR way to achieving the goal of a completed puzzle.

In some things, you can start at the frame, in a corner, or just anywhere.  Learning to piece things together is a skill.  Seeing things with your mind's eye that's a gift to be nurtured. 

Doing puzzles, playing games, solving problems, experiencing life for a child is like doing a puzzle - some pieces have to come before others. Some pieces can be put together and set aside until other pieces of the puzzle are ready or make sense....as we watch our children develop, our challenge is to discern what methods they are using to piece together the universe around them.  They may just choose to do it frame, corner, or anywhere...your job is to support, nurture, encourage guide.  We learn from exploration...there's time enough later on to be more insistent on the 'right' technique. 

I had to decide whether I wanted my child to experience and explore or to do things my way?  And, was/is  my way better or just my way?  My way is better for me; her way is better for her.