Wooden Knobbed Puzzles - Geography For Kids - Review

Does your child like puzzles? Here is something interesting for those little hands. Montessori inspired puzzles that cover some geography🌎! These wooden toys (knobbed puzzles) are made by artisans in India. 

I came across these wooden knobbed puzzles of India, Continents 🌎🌏& Countries of the world by Stuti Gupta (Wooden Toy Lovers) . Sharing them here for your benefit and if you would like to order these for your child, here is a benefit for all you awesome members of this community. This is a token of love for being here!


PRODUCT DETAILS

Continents puzzle - 399 Rs + shipping, A4 size

Countries of the world puzzle - 700 Rs + shipping, 46*30 cm

️India puzzle - 450 Rs +shipping, 30*30cm

HOW TO ORDER

You can order these puzzles directly by contacting Stuti Gupta on whatsapp 📲 9811987124.


DISCOUNT

Mention the discount code KJUNCTION & get an instant 👉 5% OFF on the prices mentioned above. Shipping is extra for all the puzzles.


PERSONAL REVIEW

These are nice to introduce the concept, names & shapes of the continents, countries & states of India. I do not own them because I already have another version of such puzzles since a year now. But these wooden ones are a better eco-friendly alternative. It has knobs so it also helps in pincer grip. It is sturdier as compared to foam based puzzles of the same type available in the market.

I would have preferred if the country & states shapes & sizes were more to scale but since this is just for representation purposes, it is not that big an issue. The child surely gets an idea about the stuff this puzzle intends to give. Some states in the India map will not have knobs because of their small size. So those pieces wont be detachable from the map board. This is a known limitation because of small size of the state, but needs a gentle mention in this review.

Overall, nice, engaging & educational puzzles. When not used with the puzzle board, for elder kids, the individual pieces of the puzzle can be used for tracing the countries or states shape & kids can color them.

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Hope to see you around. Happy Parenting!

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Fun Learning Activity Ideas For Toddlers & Preschoolers (2 - 3 Years) At Home (VLOG)

Ask a mother, she would agree how important it is to keep young kids (toddlers & preschoolers) engaged at home, especially 2 to 3 year olds ;) With the rainy season around, it is all the more necessary to have some activities for them indoor at home to reduce screen time. Being a Montessori mom & an early learning enthusiast, I set up my son's shelf activities at least once a month. Some of them are DIY too. 

Here are some ideas that you can borrow from the current shelf that I have set up for my son. He is 28 months (2.4 years) old right now & I am homeschooling him currently. Early learning has become my passion after my son was born. 

Here is the video of his current shelf and I have explained all the activities in detail. This kind of set up helps to keep my son screen-free. They are fun learning activities that we all can do at home.




I usually try to cover various areas (as suggested by Montessori) when I set up the activities like fine motor, logic, practical life, sensorial, language, math, open-ended play etc. But I do not necessarily have all of them and try to follow my child's interests always. In past, I have tried to include every area in principle and then my son would not touch some of the activities at all. There are so many ideas floating around on the net, specially pinterest, that it is so easy to get overwhelmed. So it is best to stick to what you think your child would like & what would suits his skill set. Every child is different & so are their interests & skill set at a given age.

Here are few glimpses of our setup in pics, if you do not prefer a video.

Rhyming Words 

Human lifecycle puzzle

Magnetic Blocks

Montessori Sensorial - Brown Stairs

Vegetable Puzzle

Pretend Play - Aeroplane Set

Eduedge Puzzle

Eduedge Puzzle 2

Pretend Play - Building A Wall With Bricks & Cement

Pretend Play - Army 

Hope you liked the ideas & I hope this will help you in reducing the screen time of your child (if you are trying to do that)

Do not forget to follow us on Facebook page & closed Facebook group, Twitter and Instagram for day to day updates that might not always find a place on this blog. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to know more about our early learning journey, DIY & Montessori-inspired activities for kids, kids books & toys reviews and much more!

Hope to see you around. Happy Parenting!

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Hands-on Educational Activities For Toddlers & Preschoolers & Toy Recommendations (VLOG)

My 2 year old son is currently so much interested in doing puzzles & open ended play with blocks. So I set up him Montessori shelf with interest led activities. Take a look in the video below for ideas & some great toy recommendations too :)

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Repurposing Jigsaw Puzzles - What To Do When Your Child Is Done With A Puzzle?

Are you wondering what to do with the jigsaw puzzles that your child is done with / mastered solving? Here is a simple idea how you can repurpose those puzzles & create a new activity with increased complexity!

Do you have any other ideas on how you can repurpose them? Please do share :)

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All You Wanted To Know About Tangram Puzzle - And How To Introduce It To Toddlers

What is A Tangram

A traditional Chinese puzzle made of a square divided into seven pieces (one parallelogram, one square and five triangles) that can be arranged to match particular designs. Arranged correctly, the shapes can be fitted together as a large square, rectangle, or triangle. They can also be arranged in a variety of complex shapes.

The relationship among the pieces enables them to fit together to form many figures and arrangements. However, the tangram is more than a seven piece square. When it comes to tangrams, the challenge is to arrange the pieces to form additional shapes. The seven pieces can be arranged to make anything form a rabbit, to the alphabet, to a person. "The tangram is the opposite of a jigsaw puzzle. Instead of fitting the pieces together in only one way, the seven tangram pieces can be arranged to make a great number of different figures" (Bohning, G., et al., 1997, p. 4).

Objective

The objective of the puzzle is to form a specific shape (given only an outline or silhouette) using all seven pieces, which may not overlap. Over 6500 different tangram problems have been created from 19th century texts alone, and the current number is ever-growing.

How To Play With Tangram?

There are many ways to play with tangrams. The simplest way is to let kids create their own complex shapes. But traditionally, tangrams are treated as puzzles. The player is shown a target shape (in outline, or silhouette only) and then asked to recreate that shape using the seven pieces. There are tons of tangram patterns on the internet, something of THIS kind.

Rules Of Tangram

• All seven pieces must be used. 
• All pieces must be flat. 
• All pieces must touch. 
• No pieces may overlap. 
• Pieces may be rotated and/or flipped to form the desired shape. 

Why & How Is It Useful For Kids? (Starting From Toddler Stage)

It is very important that children explore with a hands-on, minds-on attack in a problem solving environment. Tangrams promote this idea through open-ended explorations. Through tangrams they are involved in manipulating and problem solving. Children are naturally curious so trying to solve a puzzle involving tangrams is going to provoke their curiousity and therefore be interesting so they will be engaged in what they are doing.

• Tangrams can teach kids about spatial relationships. 
• They help kids learn geometric terms and develop stronger problem solving skills. 
• They might help children perform better in general mathematics. 
• Tangrams help children develop mathematical concepts of fractions, spatial awareness, geometry, area, and perimeter. 
• By using tangram shapes, children learn the relationships between shapes. 
• Children learn that three basic shapes, the triangle, square, and parallelogram, can fit together to form many other shapes and figures. 
• Tangrams also helps to hone spatial rotation skills 
• Tangram helps to acquire a precise vocabulary for manipulating shapes (e.g., “flip," “rotate") 

How To Introduce Tangram To Toddlers

I first introduced tangram to my son when he turned 2 years (20 days back). This is the time he had started showing a lot of interest in puzzles of every kind and building blocks. So he is in a sensitive period of enjoying open-ended play & logic/reasoning based activities. After exploring the pieces for quite some time in an open ended & free play manner, he has now learnt how to make a square using all 7 pieces. 

Here is a quick video of my son making a square using tangram - 

The next step is to make different kinds of patterns using tangram. I am going to arrange the pieces myself first based on the patterns floating around the net & then take pictures of the same. Print them out & present them to my son to replicate the patterns. I know there are so many printables already but the colors of the tangram pieces might be different in different printables & I do not want to confuse my son while he is arranging the puzzle. After he has solved such puzzles, I may introduce him to making the patterns by watching the just the outline/silhoutte. But this requires a lot more skill, so lets see when he is ready for it.

Where To Buy Tangram From

There are so many varieties of tangrams available in the market today, ranging from wooden to cardboard to magnetic one. Listing some of them below. I personally got it from a closed facebook group Ionica's Toys.




Source - wikipedia, parenting science, Jody Andrea Blog

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Importance Of Puzzles For Toddlers In Early Years & How To Teach Or Introduce Your Toddler To Solve Puzzles (VLOG)

Hands down, puzzles help in developing so many skills for those little beings. Here are some of the benefits of solving puzzles - 

Fine Motor Skills / Hand Eye Coordination
The ability to hold those pieces, putting them rightly in the slots/grooves does not come across as easy to the toddlers as it appears to us. 

Emotional Skills & Confidence
Ever seen the triumph face of a toddler after s/he successfully solves the puzzle? They learn patience & gain confidence in the process of solving puzzles!

Memory 
To remember which piece fits where & which one does not, no doubt the memory is being sharpened when your toddlers solves a puzzle

Logic & Problem Solving
Do I need to elaborate more? :) This soft skill is very much needed as they grow into independent individuals. 

Enhances Visual & Spatial Intelligence 
If you have not read about the multiple intelligence theory by Howard Gardner, please do read a summary HERE. And puzzles provide a beautiful opportunity to enhance the visual & spatial intelligence in an individual.


Now, something magical happened in the last 1 week. My son turned 2 yesterday and suddenly he wanted to do puzzles, puzzles and more puzzles! Who is complaining? :) Watch more in the video how & when I introduced puzzles to my son.

We have loved such 1 piece / knobbed puzzles in the beginning of our puzzle solving journey

Then we graduated to 2 piece puzzles like these



Now we are trying to do multiple pieces jigsaw puzzles like these

By the way, once your child has mastered a specific puzzle, if you are wondering what to do with that puzzle, here is an idea how you can repurpose a bunch of puzzles :)



I loved THIS post on how to introduce puzzles to toddlers. Do find time to hop on to this amazing blog.

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How To Introduce Continents Of The World To Kids - Geography (VLOG)

Are you looking to introduce some geography to your toddlers? Check out this wonderful world map foam puzzle where your kid can learn about continents in a hands-on, Montessori inspired & play way method. 

We started this puzzle as a pattern matching & visual discrimination activity. He continued to ask what is what, and that is how he learnt the names of the seven continents. The emphasis here is not on memorization of continent names. It is easy at this stage when the child is imitating & reproducing anything exposed to them. It can be an item song or a nursery rhyme or continent names. But this serves as a starter for introducing geography to kids - world, continents, countries etc. My son is 23 months in this video.

I supplemented this activity with the following storyline for my toddler -

We live in our house. And our house is in a society named XYZ. He knows this for a fact. Then I extended this concept from known to unknown - what he knows is house & society. I told him there are so many societies like ours in our area & the area's name is ABC. Similarly there are so many such areas in a city & we live in Pune city. I expanded this concept till the level of continents & world.

It is still kind of abstract for him but I am guessing he will get the concept soon. Also, he had been asking a lot these days, where did that uncle aunty come from, where do they live, I want to go there, we will go by car, train etc etc. So I picked up these cues by him to expand more on this concept.

I got this foam puzzle from a facebook page called Creative Express. They have many more exciting products in their store. You can avail an exclusive 15% discount on all of their products. Just mention this discount code while placing an order with them - RPP0107

Check out our SHOP & OFFERS page to find exclusive discounts on many more educational products & kids books.

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Do not forget to follow "The K Junction" on Facebook page & closed Facebook group, Twitter and Instagram for day to day updates that might not always find a place on this blog. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to know more about our early learning journey, DIY & Montessori & Waldorf inspired activities for kids, kids books & toys reviews and much more!

Hope to see you around. Happy Parenting!

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Montessori Inspired Activities For Toddlers & Preschoolers - Shelf Work - 15/11/16 (VLOG)

Montessori shelfwork - activities I have set up for my 20 months old toddler . It includes activities for practical life, fine motor, maths, sorting, matching, logic, puzzle, visual discrimination etc. Have a look!

Have you subscribed to my Youtube channel yet? :) )

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Learning Through Multiple Senses - A Delightfully Shocking Example

I'm delightfully shocked!

We had played with this world map foam puzzle (got it from Creative Express) when he was may be 17 or 18 months old. This was after a lot of simple matching activities that he showed interest in & did beautifully starting from 13 months. He would ask what every piece is & I used to tell him names of the continents. That was it. He had not even started speaking words back then.

Never did I show him a globe. Or any kind of spherical manifestation of the world map.

He turns 20 months today.

Today he was playing with this inflatable ball, he threw it on the floor, Australia faced him, he bent over the ball & with a eureka expression, he said 'Australia Australia'!

And I was shocked, literally!

It's not about teaching continents at this age. I know it will be rote learning. Neither am I interested in memorizing him names of the continents.

I am amazed, how a hands-on learning approach is so powerful. How a child learns & absorbs if more than one sense is involved. How a child can map a flat surface shape to the same shape on a sphere. How they make so awesome connections in their brains.

This is the reason why I love miniatures & figurines too.

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