Puzzles

Puzzles

Whatever your age, you are never too young, or too old, to play with a puzzle. Puzzles are a great way to relax, on your own or with friends and family. A bit of friendly competition with puzzling can connect you with others. Figuring out a puzzle keeps you engaged and cognitively sharp. Manipulating puzzles also help with using fine motor skills and keeping the smaller muscles and joints in our hands flexible and supple.

Jigsaw puzzles involve placing and connecting interlocking pieces of images together to form a bigger picture. They were originally wood, but most examples you'll see are cardboard or paperboard, so they are lightweight, portable and easy to post. Individual pieces can be big with simplistic images, or small with intricate patterns and designs to match. Standard jigsaw puzzles are flat, but jigsaws are also available in more challenging three-dimensional formations, such as the spherical logo of Wikipedia as an example. Designs and patterns on jigsaw puzzles are limitless. Art, nature, movie and cartoon characters, buildings, vehicles, or create your own by personalising with your own photographs.

Rubik’s Cube is probably the most famous cube twist puzzle worldwide thanks to widespread marketing in the 1980's and a new millennium revival. This six-sided cube is further split into nine individual squares in a 3 by 3 by 3 configuration that revolves and spins has around three billion combinations. The final one you want to get to is single coloured squares on every side. Variations to the original design include pyramid shapes, dodecahedrons and transparent cubes. For younger kids, educational balls and snakes twist and turn to learn and play.

The feel of wooden puzzles brings a sense of delight and appreciation of woodworking crafts to young and old. For youngsters, learning how to place pegs in puzzle holes, assemble shapes, animals, the alphabet, easy jigsaws with a solid wooden puzzle is truly magical. Older puzzlers working with more complex wooden puzzles will ponder how a craftsperson created unique and interlocking shapes.

Metal wire puzzles to disentangle or put back into place are popular brain teaser puzzlesr that can keep many a mind busy. "Magic" boxes with hidden compartments to find are a great way for an extra "hide and seek" component to giving another gift inside. Sudoku puzzles and word search puzzle books are great ways to keep occupied.