I love puzzles because they have so much learning potential and they can really draw a whole family together while they’re being assembled. I brought this long and tall rocketship to my 4 year-old friend’s house and it didn’t take long for his older siblings, mom and grandma to all be enjoying putting this five foot puzzle together with him, calling out pictures from different stages of the rocket ship with objects to count that correspond to the number they are near. A well illustrated preschool puzzle offers lots of opportunity for fun language learning. My little friend was looking for the astronaut’s feet, wrenches and.”Where does the paint go?” as we worked our way up the puzzle, also counting from one to ten. Identifying, naming and sequencing numbers, describing sections of the puzzle and using positional words, higher, on top, next, last, are all important skills for preschoolers to learn. After we all finished the puzzle, our friend counted backwards (with some help from big sister) and then said, “Blastoff!”

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