Jigsaws Of Slightly Increasing Difficulty

We bought Monkey some small jigsaws about 3 months ago.  One was a double-sided tractor jigsaw, the other was 4 separate emergency vehicles of 3, 4, 5 & 6 pieces.  As he was doing those really easily we got him a 25 piece tractor jigsaw, which he also mastered pretty quickly.  I spent a long time after that, browsing for suitable jigsaws on ebay.  Trying to balance something that was neither too easy nor too challenging, but which also had an interesting picture.  As in not a cheesy cartoon tractor.  Yes, I know I probably shouldn’t be imposing my own artistic preferences, but if I am going to participate it helps if I have more of an interest in the finished article.

I finally settled on – 1 of 36 pieces (Peter Rabbit); a set of 4 of 40 pieces each (some Peter Rabbit characters); and a 54 piece engine.  They all went down well, and I am rather gratified that the gamble of such a jump in difficulty (more pieces, smaller & more fiddly pieces) seems to have gone ok.  He hasn’t abandoned the easier ones, and tends to do those on his own.  I think he is somewhat aware of his capabilities – knows that the newer ones are more difficult & better to share.

I was also happy to note that even when sharing these newer puzzles he will happily take the initiative to try pieces together if he sees something that looks like it might fit.  And not always the bits I would have called the ‘easiest’.  I think these jigsaws will last a while – he isn’t quite ready for a 5000 piece baked bean montage yet.