Wednesday Words - Early Reading Skills: shapes and relationships - jigsaws

Jigsaw puzzles are fun for young children, and they are also great to help develop awareness of patterns, shapes, lines and detail as well as eye-hand coordination. These are all useful skills for reading and writing.

You can make simple jigsaws by cutting up old Christmas or birthday cards*, or pictures glued onto card. 

 (*TIP: glue the card closed before cutting for extra strength).

You can also find many jigsaws online that your child can do on a computer, when they have mastered using a mouse, touchpad or touchscreen.

I have made a range of ‘computer jigsaws’ for my reading students, from very simple 4- to 16- piece puzzles to harder jigsaws; some are a challenge even for adults. They work as an .exe file on Windows computers. 

Most of my ‘intermediate’ jigsaws have a word or words to piece together as well as the picture, so the children are practising making words without really realising.

You can download computer jigsaws for free from my site www.ePuzzlEd.net

including First jigsaws- 4-16 pieces and 20-20-piece jigsaws here: epuzzlejigsawslinks

and Melbourne Zoo animal jigsaws, 20-35 pieces here: newharderjigsaws

(Note: when I downloaded some of my jigsaws, the security on my computer didn't want to open them...I had to click on 'open anyway').

You can find many other jigsaws, and even make your own jigsaws from your favourite digital pictures or family photos, on www.jigzone.com.