The lovely Lorna over at Gin & Lemonade With A Twist Blog has started a new writing prompt.

She hasn’t named her challenge, so I have – Lorna’s Gin-spiring Prompt!

This week, we have the word: Puzzle

I thought about Lorna and her scary cats puzzle, and it made me think of all the puzzles I have encountered in my lifetime, from the simple wooden 4 piece puzzles of childhood, to the much more complex 1000 piece world map we have sitting in a box, with a puzzle mat ready to do, but never have the time to actually complete it!

I don’t think though, that I have ever seen something as scary as those kittens! I do love a cat, but that – no thank you!

Puzzles can be the bane of my life at work. As an early years teacher we have to provide all opportunities for the children, and you would be amazed at how many don’t even have a puzzle of any sort at home. So, out come our huge collection!

We have the simple to the slightly more complex (12 pieces – wooo!) large and small, cardboard wooden, traditional and fit the shape to the cut out ones. Obviously they aren’t all out at the same time, but still, you can imagine how things get mixed up, and then there are the children who can’t play nicely, and rip pieces, or just hide them, posting them into unreachable (at the time) places!

They can be a nightmare!

But in reality, puzzles are so beneficial for the children, looking at matching colours, following a picture, special awareness, and patience!

Nowadays, everything is so immediate, that it is good for a child to learn how to stay at a task for longer than 30 seconds!

Now, the other thing that came to mind is one of my favourite children’s books, Monkey Puzzle by Julia Donaldson of The Gruffalo fame!

Have you read it?

It is so cute! A story about a baby monkey who has lost his mummy and finds a butterfly to help him find her. The thing is, as butterflies don’t look like their caterpillar babies, the butterfly finds a host of other animals for the monkey, who gets increasingly irate!

The best thing is that the dialogue from the butterfly is actually written in the same rhythm as “Hush Little Baby, Don’t Say A Word” so whenever I read it to the kids, I sing those parts!

Oh I do love to read stories to kids!!

https://ginlemonade.com/2018/10/03/talking-to-strangers-about-penguins/