Jigsaw Puzzles And Board Games

Jigsaw puzzles and board games have always been popular with children of all ages. They are so versatile. Whilst those in the early years have lots of fun learning through play, they are developing skills and cognitive functions that will serve them well as they grow up and move onto ‘big school’ and beyond. Numeracy,  literacy, recognising and describing  shapes and space, developing physical dexterity and hand-eye co-ordination, communication and language – these are just some of the many areas of learning that kids can develop through play with jigsaws and games.

We have an extensive range of jigsaws and games for you to choose from.  Our Wooden Peg Puzzles are perfect for toddlers with small hands. Featuring colourful drawings and large, durable chunky pieces with pegs that make them easy to lift and slot into place, these are a good introduction to shape, colour, everyday objects and help young ones develop fine motor skills.  Our Wooden Peg Puzzles come in packs of 4 and cover many themes including: insects, fruits and vegetables, transport, seaside, at the farm, playtime, pets, in the garden, objects that share the same colour, objects that share the same shape, stories from the Bible, clothes and jungle animals.

Our Large Piece Jigsaw Puzzles allow children to see the featured photograph build up quickly giving them a great sense of achievement whilst they work out how to fit the pieces together. Each features a high quality image of a domestic or wild animal. Choose from: cat, dogs, elephant, lion, owl and whale.

Introduce little ones to letter and number recognition and sequencing with our literacy and numeracy puzzles. Our tactile literacy puzzles bring the alphabet to life and are ideal for kinaesthetic learners. The wooden letters and numbers in our Letter and Number Jigsaws can be used as templates for children to draw around as well as teaching them short words, counting and learning basic sums using the wooden mathematical symbols. Our beautifully illustrated ABC jigsaws come in sets of 3: Tip and Fit, Floor Puzzle and Interlocking Puzzle designed to develop letter and word associations. Once the basics have been conquered, stretch the children and introduce them to spelling and sounding out loud short word formations with our consonant-vowel-consonant or CVC Puzzles.

We have a very large collection of colourful Wooden Jigsaw Puzzles. These are particularly effective at encouraging language and communication skills as the majority of the jigsaws depict scenes and objects that kids are likely to encounter in their everyday lives. Many are also designed to encourage an understanding of the world and how they relate to its people and communities. Themes include: In the Community (eg, school, shops, doctor, emergency services), emotions, people of all races, ages and physical abilities as well as different family relationships (eg, single parent, multi-generational, multi-racial) and religions. Traditional topics like animals and nursery rhymes are also included.

Our collection of Wood Tray Puzzles range from simple colour board shapes to more challenging illustrations and photographs. All the usual child-friendly themes are addressed along with people who help us and taking care of ourselves. One of the more unusual tray puzzles sets is the Layered Life Cycle Puzzles which offer children a pictorial insight into the development of animals from birth to adulthood. The animals featured are: chicken, crocodile, penguin, salmon, snake and spider.

Whilst many of our puzzles are designed for one-to-one supported or independent learning, our larger floor puzzles are ideal for a group work activity. Get kids to co-operate and work as a team as they try solving the puzzles or learning the countries of the world with the Giant World Map Puzzle.

We have a comprehensive range of games for children. Our Magnetic Mazes and Magnetic Matching Games are cleverly designed to introduce kids to handwriting. Using a stylus which they hold like a pen, they have to use the magnetic tip to move the coloured balls and beads through the wooden channels in the board which are housed under a plastic cover for safety.

Classic boxed games never lose their appeal. Our range of boxed educational games have been designed for kids to enjoy learning how to tell the time, recognise the months of the year, sequencing what comes next and working out what comes before and after. They can also learn how to put things in a logical order and how to categorize objects of different shapes, sizes and colour.

Extend kids’ literacy skills with our range of literacy games. Designed for children aged 4+, this set of 4 games helps them to grow their vocabulary and use more sophisticated sentence structures.  They can also be used very effectively with older children in a primary or secondary school setting when trying to explain and illustrate literary terms and devices. The literacy games help pupils learn the difference between homonyms (words with more than one meaning), homophones (words that sound similar to each other but have different meanings), synonyms (words that have the same meaning but are spelt and sounded differently) and antonyms (words that have opposite meaninngs).

Get the kids playing games in small groups with play mats and indoor soft play skittles. Snakes and Ladders teaches children the importance of taking turns and building an emotional  resilience to unplanned setbacks. Our Snakes and Ladders play mat achieves this on a grand scale. Made in tough nylon with a non slip back, this is a classroom favourite.  There is also a Snakes and Ladders play mat in our set of 4 Games Mats alongside Labyrinth, Horse Ludo and Noughts and Crosses.

Bird watching takes on a new meaning with our range of avian themed Happy Birds and Happy Owls games. These charming nursery games help kids to learn colour recognition and matching patterns and shapes to picture cards.

Originally written 5 January 2018