Games & Puzzles

Showing 1–16 of 94 results

Planet Apple Toys stocks a wide range of wooden games and puzzles for children. Help your child learn and develop through play with our safe, quality and ethically sourced toys.

No matter what age we are we love to play with puzzles and this love affair begins in childhood. We like the way they challenge our thinking and exercise our minds. Puzzles allow “an opportunity for young children to focus on an activity that has an ending,” (Nancy Maldonado).

In addition puzzles are an essential educational means of learning for toddlers and young children as they provide the opportunity to learn new skills both physically and mentally.

Involving your child in daily active play helps babies and children to develop a lifelong habit of daily exercise and life skills which include the ability to communicate and other social skills and an understanding of the rules of social engagement. The opportunity to develop friendships as a sense of give and take evolves together with teamwork gives them sense of belonging.

Planet Apple Toys stock a range of first wooden puzzles with just 3 pieces and your child will progress to the move advanced puzzles with 5, 10 and 25 pieces as they develop. These larger puzzles enable them to learn colour and shape recognition, as well as numbers and the alphabet.

Puzzles develop hand eye coordination, and motor skills whilst their ability to organize and interpret what the eyes can see is given the opportunity to evolve. Concentration, attention and thinking skills blossom as they learn to recognize, remember, match, sort and problem solve. Plus language skills will grow as they listen and follow instructions and discuss what they are doing.

The ability to think, reason and remember are skills known as cognitive. Puzzles come in a variety of different subject matter and themes such as numbers, alphabet letters, pets, shapes vehicles, wildlife etc and in a range of colours. All designed to increase a child’s visual spatial awareness and develop their understanding of these themes and subjects. Every child is an individual and as such their ability to learn will be different, puzzles might be their favourite medium with which to learn numbers, letters and colours.

The youngest child will usually start with a simple puzzle with pegs on shapes which fit into their corresponding cutout. As they outgrow this simple activity they move on to more complex shapes which mirror silhouettes of things in the real world that take more deliberation. The ability to remember is developed as they have to remember the shape of the pieces of the puzzle that don’t fit first time around.

The challenge of completing a puzzle, even one that is the most simple, has a single goal to aim at and strategies have to be worked out as to how they can achieve this goal. These strategies include problem solving, reasoning and the ability to develop solutions, all skills which can be learned for use in their adult life. Either a piece of the puzzle fits or it doesn’t, the child has to use logic to work out how a piece fits and no cheating is possible.

Fine motor skills are refined and developed by playing with puzzles. Grasping, picking up or pinching small pieces to move them around or manipulate them so they fit in the corresponding slots and correct spaces all helps to achieve this. In addition, puzzles with larger pieces and stacking puzzle games enhance gross motor skills which lead to the opportunity to enhance their fine motor skills.

The messages the brain receives from what is seen via the child’s eyes and what their hands do and the evolution of these messages or hand eye co-ordination is refined and developed. A toddler will try again and again to make the pieces of a puzzle fit together in the correct order