07545Sounds simple enough, but an 80 piece puzzle ups the challenge for a 5 year-old and up. Luckily the alphabet theme is cleverly woven throughout the puzzle to give location clues for pieces based on letters, matching objects and people, and the printed word corresponding to images. My little friend found a piece with the bike first and said, “I need a B.” and “The B is blue, can someone help me?” after consulting the drawing on the box. Then I hear, “R is for robot,” as he searches for the letter and parts of the figure. After assembling different letters and corresponding pictures, he started to order them according to the alphabet. He finished the puzzle declaring it, “Pretty cool,” and declared, “I wish D could be for drums, because I play drums. This puzzle gets kids thinking on the language level besides working on fine motor and spacial skills. With three possible clues for each segment, the letter, corresponding picture and written word, kids get a literacy work-out too as they link sounds, letters and objects and figures to the written word.

Available at Ravensburger