beleduc has series of cleverly designed

The Layered Approach: Another Alternative Puzzle Format for Young Children

A few days ago I wrote about a homemade block puzzle that seemed to

resonate with readers. So I thought today I'd share our favorite

storebought puzzle, and a whole series of them made by the same

company. Like block puzzles, these introduce a level of complexity to

puzzle-making beyond simply adding more pieces and making them

smaller.

Belgian educational toy company Beleduc (get it? Bel-educ?) has a

series of cleverly-designed multi-layered puzzles, by which we mean

they are actually a sequence of puzzles completed from the bottom up,

with pieces fitting only in their layer. This intriguing idea allows

them to demonstrate a variety of concepts:

Stages of development: Their Frog Life-Cycle Puzzle shows the

transition from a tadpole into a frog. The base shows a cluster of

eggs, and each multi-piece layer illustrates a stage of the

amphibian's development. They do the same with the

caterpillar-to-butterfly transformation.

Periods of a cycle: The four seasons are also presented in a "forced

sequence," with puzzle layers completed in order that reinforce their

chronological order. The only thing missing from this demonstration is

that the first follows the fourth - layers cannot really represent a

true cycle as well as some other toys might. Also, there seems to be

at least a partial missed opportunity in not allowing parts of layers

to be interchangeable in this particular puzzle - I'm sure Z would get

a kick out of being able to show kids in summer gear in the dead of

winter.

But our favorite of these puzzles, and the only one we've actually

used, is the one we bought Z for Christmas.

Layers are, in order of depth, clothes, skin, muscles, and organs,

with the skeleton printed on the bottom layer. All we could have asked

for is a circulatory/nerve layer and a bit better differentiation

between the girl's head in the "skin" and "clothed" layers.

The puzzle comes in a boy and a girl version, each a bargain at $20

bought her, and has sparked innumerable conversations about how her

body works.

If you're interested in puzzles, you might also like these ZRecs

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