Wooden #Puzzles for Toddlers

Not too long ago, I was told I'm going to be an aunt again. My nieces and nephew's call me Aunt Lissy. I'm excited to have a niece after many years. I have only one other niece, and she's around the age of 26. I start to loose track, once a person goes past the age of 10. She was born when I was in college, so I think I have her age right. Margaret will be born late August. She'll have 4 brothers. Help her! Ha!

Along with the excitement of having a new girl in the family, I have new products to review. One, is a puzzle set for Miss Margaret. I hope she finds it to build her fine motor skills well.

Age Range:

It says for ages 3 and up. 

Mica got into puzzles well before age 3. It probably depends on the child. 

What the Set Comes With:

Four wooden puzzles + a storage bag

My favorite:

Olivia the Owl is my favorite. They aren't named, but I named them. 

Second Favorite:

I love bees because they are cute, and if you leave them alone they aren't a threat. I called his one Bella Bee. 

Third Favorite:

I like this one, although I think the fish could pop out more - contrast wise. A lot of yellow in the background, and a lot of yellow in the fish. I called his one Fishy Faith.

Fourth Favorite:

I like this one just about as much as the fish, but I have to be honest here - the background totally peeled up. It's like it wasn't even glued down. If a 3 year old kid got ahold of that, it would be a goner. It's cute, but give me a held up product! I will probably paint Elmer's glue on it, and place it myself. I called his one Lizzy Lady.

The Bag:

The bag isn't a quality bag, but it's handy. What little kid doesn't like to carry stuff around, and pretend to go on a nowhere trip? I can't think of one. Isaak always packed to go nowhere. All the puzzles fit inside. 

Which puzzle is your favorite?

You to can pick up this product on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07TTRLVRZ for $19.99 on sale for $13.87.

Disclaimer: I got this product for free in exchange for an honest review. All opinions and words are my own. 

Bored? Solve These Mind-Boggling Puzzles!

Source: https://pixabay.com/photos/problem-question-solution-response-860227/

You have finished all your chores for the day. You are at home. You cleaned yesterday, so there is nothing left messy. You did the laundry this morning. You completed the work you brought home from your school or office. That TV series that you were watching? The seek pointer just swept past the last seconds on the finale episode. And now, there is absolutely nothing left to do. Are you bored? Can't find anything to do? Why do you not entertain your brain with these mind-boggling puzzles? Put on your thinking caps. Let us get your thought train running!

1. Captured By Pirates! 

Source: https://pixabay.com/photos/sailboat-boat-marin-corsair-pirate-1273172/

This one is a classic prisoner-hat riddle. Imagine you are a captured pirate on an enemy ship. Nine of your comrades are also there, bound with ropes. The enemy pirate captain is in a playful mood and wants to kill you and your friends for sport. "You can save yourselves if you win a game!" he says. Eager to save your lives, you agree. The rules of the game are thus. You and your ten friends have to wear a pirate cap on your head, which will be either black or white. You are all supposed to line up height-wise and face forwards, such that everyone in the line can only see the caps of all the people in front of themselves. You cannot see your cap, and you cannot turn back or break the line. You will save your life only if at least nine out of ten of your friends guess the color of their cap right. The pirates give you five minutes to come up with an idea. If you fail, you will have to jump off the deck of the ship into the sea. How will you save yourself and your friends?

Answer Ahead:

The tallest person at the end of the line can see the caps of all his shorter friends standing height-wise in front of him. So he can pass some information on to his friends. This information should be whether the number of black colored caps he sees in front of him is odd or even. "Black" could mean an odd number, and "white" could mean even. Let's say that the tallest guy says that he saw an even number of black caps. If the next guy counts an odd number of black colored caps in front of him, he can deduce that he has a black cap too that makes the number even! Otherwise, if he sees an even number of black colored caps, he can safely say that his cap is white. In this way, one by one, everyone can guess the color of their caps very easily!

2. Prison Break

Source: https://pixabay.com/photos/prison-prison-cell-jail-crime-553836/

The police arrested you based on a false complaint registered by your nasty neighbor Betsy. Now you are in a jail cell. Your trial is not for another week. This cell is dingy. It smells horrible. Your cell doesn’t even have tiles; it has a mud floor. You can also spot a plate and spoon for your daily meals. There is an open window on the left wall, but it is so high that it is out of your reach. Due to some repair work in progress, the repairmen leave a shovel in your cell every night. One night a fire breaks out in the jail and you are on your own. You cannot use the shovel to tunnel out of the cell because the fire will reach you before you can finish the tunnel. How will you escape?

Answer Ahead:

You can use the shovel to create a pile of mud under the window. You can climb that mud mound to reach the window and jump out through it. Did you guess it right?

3. Poisonous Pills

Source: https://pixabay.com/photos/pills-medication-tablets-bottle-384846/

A serial killer offers ten of his captives a choice. If they make the right decision, they will live. There are two pills and a glass of water on the table in front of each victim. They must eat one of the two pills on the table. The serial killer promises to ingest whichever pill they do not choose. He tells them all that one of the two pills is poisonous. All of the captives eat one of the two pills, and they all die. How did the serial killer make them all choose the wrong pill? Was he really taking the half odds?

Answer Ahead:

The serial killer is smart. He did not risk his life at a fifty percent chance. He poisoned the water in the glass. The pills were harmless! So when all the captives took the pills with the water, they dropped dead before the serial killer had to ingest his pill.

4. Whodunit?

Source: https://pixabay.com/photos/thinking-mentor-mindset-detective-4125016/

The rich people with villas in the city center woke up to a piece of shocking news this morning. There has been a cruel murder upstate. The crime scene has been left mostly undisturbed. The housemaid Chelsea found Mrs. Waltham's body on Sunday when she returned from a week-long vacation in Barbados. You are the detective the rich people hired to find out who the murderer was. When you reach the crime scene, you see unopened mailbox overflowing with envelopes. There are a couple of bottles of milk and an unread newspaper from Wednesday on the door. The window of the upper bedroom is broken. The house is very clean, except for a set of footprints that originated at the open window. Who killed Mrs. Waltham?

Answer Ahead:

The newspaper delivery man killed her. The last newspaper delivered was on Wednesday, and he did not deliver any newspapers after that because he knew that Mrs. Waltham was dead, having murdered her himself after breaking-in through the upstairs window.

How many of these answers did you guess correctly? If you figured even two out of these four out, you are a genius! These riddles jog your brain and are an easy way to kill boggling riddles can be found here. So what are you waiting for, get your pen and paper out, jot down some clues and do some serious sleuthing!

Author Bio:

Rebecca Siggers is a Teacher and passionate writer. She enjoys writing about the Kids learning activities, Parenting tips, effects of Puzzles and Crosswords all around the globe. She has been working as a freelance writer for quite some time now. Through her writing, she hopes to influence as many people as possible to help kids grow their mental skills.

Disclaimer: This is a guest post. All written content was provided by Rebecca Siggers.

Piczzle #puzzle Review

I've reviewed a Piczzle Picture Puzzle a few times before. They did an excellent job with all our puzzles!

All the Puzzles have been from Christmas postcards we've sent, so I'm thinking when the boys get older they can take them to do with their own kids, or I can leave them here for the grandkids - if we have some.

Easy to Work With: 

Piczzle was super easy to work with, and order. The shipping was so fast! We got it in less than a week.

My only problem was working around Christmas activities to get the puzzle done, which was not Piczzle's fault.

The Box:

It came in a fairly small box. I loved that because so many boxes for games and puzzles are so big!

I do think it would be great if they would have a vertical orientation for their box, as well as a horizontal one. The image quality on the box wasn't as good as the one on the puzzle.

300 Pieces: 

It didn't seem like a lot of pieces. I've done 1,000 piece puzzles before. It's a fairly small puzzle, so it did take some brain power! We all took turns doing it.

Mica started, I followed, Isaak bounced in between because he was sick, and Travis finished it off. I couldn't believe how much Travis worked on it. He usually isn't a puzzle guy. I always did them with the kids. He looked like he was having fun though.

Tip:

If you order a puzzle from Piczzle have patterns and color if possible. I had us wearing black and grey in the photo. When we were getting to Isaak's shirt, so many pieces seemed like they fit when they weren't a match. It would have helped to have him wearing a stripped shirt, or something we could go by.  

Finished: 

I do like the finished result! It's certainly a keepsake! 

Even though Isaak was sick, he enjoyed watching the puzzle process!  

Size:

It's a large sized puzzle (11"x17") with 300 pieces.

Price:

Their prices are really great! You can make your own picture puzzles. This one is worth $27.95. I think that's a great price for something custom.

• Shipping priority is $7.23.
• Priority Express, 3 to 5 business days is $21.92.
• FedEx, 2 business days is $23.71.
• FedEx, Overnight is $41.25.

All the puzzle pieces were there. I always worry about one being missing.

Overall I'm really happy with the puzzle. It was everything I hoped it would be. Piczzle really does a great job with their picture into puzzles.

Order a Piczzle Puzzle!   

Order a custom cardboard puzzle from Piczzle. You will not be disappointed! Like Piczzle Picture Puzzle on Facebook and Piczzle Photo on YouTube.

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free with Piczzle. All opinions are my own. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

3D Jigsaw Puzzle Review

I like to get fun puzzle things for the boys. The puzzle I have to share with you is called: Lando Cubes: 3D Jigsaw Puzzle.

This set the boys are getting when it's Easter time. Our Easter Bunny likes to set out some things that are fun, and candy.

The shapes can be torn apart, and you have to figure out how to put them back together again. It's not easy. I knocked one apart, and did get it to go back together after a few minutes.

The three Cubes:

This is my favorite one! Why? Because the colors remind me of the movie E.T. and candy Reese's Pieces.

Cost:

It's listed as being on sale, but it doesn't give the original price. This set is $16.99 + it has free shipping for Prime Members.

S.T.E.M.:

This helps with S.T.E.M. thinking, which stands for: Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math.

S.T.E.M. helps mentally prepare little and big brains for preplanned thinking, and problem solving. Kids and adults that play with puzzle type toys have better test scores, and they exercise their brain.

S.T.E.M. uses convergent thinking. That means that there's a preplanned way of thinking with only one result in the end. I think devergent thinking activities are great to do as well. That's more free play with lots of creative options to achieve one result in the end.

The Benefit of Puzzles:

Put down the smartphones, kindles and other devices and stimulate your mind instead. This isn't an old-fashioned flat puzzles. Solving problems through trial and error, developing kids are able to form neurons and literally GROW their brains!

Challenge For All Ages:

Users of all ages (7 and up actually) can benefit from this brain exercise that sharpens your logical thinking and promotes creativity. Not just a kid’s game!

I've always loved puzzles. Do you?

Disclaimer: I received Lando Cubes to review. I wrote this post, and was not influenced at all with an opinion. I only review things that I find interesting, or that would benefit my readers or family.

1,000 Piece Puzzle

I love puzzles when I have the time to do them. Some (my husband) might say, "What's the point? Isn't it a waist of time?"

I find them relaxing. When I do them I don't think about anything much, but finding the piece I need to find. It's also fun for me to put things into sections. Yep if you gave me a tub full of Legos with all different colors I'd be the one that would love to color organize them. I did that with my crayon box when I was a kid as well. With puzzles I separate all the edges out, then the blue goes in a pile, greenery in another and so on.

I went to Marshall's and spotted some mystery puzzles. By the way they have some other really neat games and puzzles for older kids there. I wanted to buy a bunch of stuff, but refrained. I had a mystery puzzle when I was a kid. You read a small book, put a puzzle together to help solve the mystery, and back of the book has the answers. You have to read the back in a mirror because it's all backwards.

Mica used to like puzzles, but he really hadn't touched them for a few years. I had no idea if what I got him would be a hit, or not. I thought it would be good regardless because it's something we could do together.

This is the book/puzzle I got him:

Source

I didn't pay too much attention to the fact that it was 1,000 pieces. I was just so excited that it contained a mystery book with it. Yes it's for adults. I'm an adult that helped my tween put it together. 

It took us like 3 nights to put it together. Travis I swear let the cat out of the bag that I'm Santa so many times to Isaak. Travis, "Alissa why did you have to get this thing? I swear you're missing pieces! What's the point?" Blah, Blah, Blah. In his defense we did have a dance party to get ready for. Here a puzzle was all over the floor. When I told him it had a mystery book that went with it, and that we had to solve it he thought that was cool. Nope we didn't have missing pieces, but we did have a missing piece. Down in the bottom middle. We looked all over for it, and couldn't find it. 

Mica picked it up to put it away. I could tell he didn't really want to put it away. He looked annoyed that it was going back into the box. It came up all in 1 piece!

For the record the company makes more. I looked at Sherlock Holmes, and Alfred Hitchcock as well. I think kids Mica's age - age 11 still want toys as gifts, but it's a little harder to find gifts. 

What kind of things would you get for an 11 or 12 year old boy?  

Disclaimer: This is not a review of the puzzle. I just shared because I liked it. 

The Money Maze Puzzle

Anyone that has been reading this blog for awhile knows I try and make money gifts fun. I've put money in balloons. My nephew had to pop all of them before he could get his bills. Travis has folded up money to look like all kinds of things.

Now I have a new way to give money: The Money Maze Puzzle.

It has really fun packaging!

Here's the maze cube that's inside. There is a plug that goes on the cube. It has a slit in it that is large enough to put folded up money. It is not large enough for gift cards. You do not have to solve the maze to put the money in. I just took it off to show you. I imagine small gifts could fit in the hole as well. In that case you would need to solve the maze to open the plug in order to put them in there.

Once the ball has gone through the maze it unlocks the slot to open the lid. Careful though! I put the ball on the other side of the slot thinking I solved the puzzle. Nope! I worked and worked at trying to get the lid off breaking nails, and almost breaking the lid. If it doesn't come off you've put the ball on the wrong side like I did. When I figure out what I had done wrong I was so annoyed with myself. It is a challenge indeed.

What I love about this most is that it is reusable! 

Cost: $29.90, but on sale for $9.90. I have to be honest I don't know that I'd spend the full price, but I'd most certainly spend the sale price on this!

Disclaimer: I received The Money Maze Puzzle for free for the purpose of this review. The opinions are 100% mine.

Piczzle Review and #Giveaway!

I've reviewed a Piczzle Picture Puzzle before. They did an excellent job with our puzzle then:

That puzzle had a lot of pieces. It was more for my excellent puzzle master Mica.

I just reviewed another one of Piczzle puzzles. This time I went for less pieces. I had Isaak more in mind. Both boys were looking for things to do, so they did both put it together.

Isaak found this puzzle easier to do. Much easier than our last one.

We spend a lot of time on our holiday cards - that I think they are perfect to make into puzzles.

Here's the final result:

Size:
It's a medium sized puzzle (8.5"x11") with 48 pieces.

Price:
Their prices are really great! You can make your own picture puzzles. This one is worth $21.95. I think that's a great price for something custom.

• Shipping priority is $6.95.
• FedEx 2 Day, 3 to 5 business days is $27.95.
• FedEx Overnight, 2 to 4 business days is $43.95

Making the Puzzle:
Uploading the photo was super easy. It didn't take long at all. You get a preview of your photo after it's uploaded.

I was kind of in a hurry when I did this part. I generally am in a hurry when I'm in the process of getting something online for a review. I don't want the the internet to crash, or loose a code when I'm in the middle of something like that. If something like that happens I have to email the company to get a new code, and explain what happened. That adds yet another unneeded step to the process. I just find it easier if I quickly go through the process.

I do wish they gave a preview of how your picture looks on the puzzle before you add it to the cart. It only gives you a preview of just your picture. That would have saved their company time in emailing me to tell me that my photo wasn't the right proportion for the puzzle. I could have fixed that had I seen that it wouldn't work quite right.

With that they have excellent customer service. They told me my options right away on how to fix my problem: Cropping, adding a border, making it out of proportion, or sending them a new photo the right size. I went with my own border. Then resent it. There was no waiting around for emails back and forth. They were on top of my order!

I ordered this photo puzzle on Thursday last week. It was printed and sent by Saturday. Super fast production. The quality is good to! It's a premium grade cardboard with a glossy finish.

All the puzzle pieces were there. I always worry about one being missing.

Overall I'm really happy with the puzzle. It was everything I hoped it would be. Piczzle really does a great job with their picture into puzzles.

 Win a puzzle!  

Win a small custom cardboard puzzle from Piczzle. You will not be disappointed! Open to the US and Canada! Like Piczzle Picture Puzzle on Facebook and Piczzle Photo on YouTube.
a Rafflecopter giveaway


 
I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.