Jigsaw Puzzle, our passion.
Sunday 4 March 2017 : 12th edition of 4 hours Puzzle Maransart
As this year we could not participate to the Maransart juigsaw puzzle contest, which took place on the same day as the Barvaux-Durbuy Puzzleday, we have asked the organizers to tell us how went this year’s edition. Here you have the kind answer of Marie-Claire, from «La pièce qui compte»:
Hello,
It is very nice of you, and here you have what we can say about the last completion at Maransart.
As every year, the 4 hours jigsaw puzzle contest of Maransart took place in a warm and relaxed atmosphere in the benefit of the association
Association of parents of young children with Down’s Syndrome 21 wishing to join our forces in order to offer a better world to our so wonderfully different children.
Our edition was still quite successful despite the organization of the Barvaux puzzle contest, as 22 teams participated in the «Beginners» category, 18 were in the «Initiated», and finally 14 teams played in the «experts» category.
We started at 14h00. After 46 minutes, we had already our winner in the «Beginners» category, as the team «Magic puzzle» was ringing out the bell for the first time, shortly followed by «On fait ce qu’on puzzle» and «Qui se ressemble s’assemble» to complete the podium.
16h03 and here we have the first puzzle in the «Expert» category, completed by «le tonneau contre attaque», followend then by «les faucons qui rigolent» and finally «les Acharnées du puzzle».
In the «Initiated» category, we had to wait a little bit longer before we could put an end to the suspense, and it’s the «A nos puzzle» team who finalize the puzzle in 3h08, followed by «Ping puzzle» and finally by «les Yakatriés» who completed the leading trio
The date is already marked for the next contest on Saturday 3rd February 2018.
La pièce qui compte
Sunday, October 9th took place the 6th jigsaw puzzle championship of Saillant
The sixth edition of this competition of puzzles organized by "The Friends of Saillant" was a really big success.
The social hall cannot contain more participants. Like last year more than 40 teams competed in a studious atmosphere, something really like no other. Nothing to do with contests of cards or bingo. "puzzle is puzzle!"
All generations were represented ...
Sunday, 2nd October 2016, new edition of the puzzle contest of Panassac
For the third time (after 2012 and 2014) the Association "the puzzle is in the field" organized its jigsaw puzzle championship in Panassac.
This year, there were 50 registered and 48 teams present. This competition achieved a large increase (30 teams in 2012, 35 teams in 2014) but also a new public.
On the 1st edition in 2012, the public was more "local" not necessarily accustomed to the practice of the puzzle with only one team in 1000 pieces (to be sure of winning as they said!).
This time, nine teams in 1000 pieces and some really passionate.
How the day went...
Welcome from 10h to 11h, 11h to 16h30 puzzle with a meal break of about 1h for everyone
The Clementoni puzzles offered this year in the different categories:
- Category experts puzzle 1000p rainbow beach huts
- Category amateurs puzzle 500p illustrazione Venezia
- Category ados puzzle 500p bright red heart
- Category enfants puzzle rond 212p Minions orlando
This year the first 3 amateur teams finished the puzzle in 1h25,1h26 30" and 1h26 50".
But the record establish in 2014 of 57 minutes remains unequaled.
a few Words from organizers
"The kids were confused by the round shape puzzle Minions, next time we will stay classic.
For teenagers, the 500 pieces was too hard. Ideally it would be a puzzle between 200 and 500 pieces, but not easy to find.
The audience was quite familial. Some parents made the competition looking after their young children.
We've had a lot of positive feedback on this issue and strong demand to organize it every year. We have already planned an exterior formula, but not in a competition mode where you really make the puzzle in the meadows, like the name of our association.
Meanwhile, we wish to develop the puzzles loan association. We will also provide an association with local structures: schools, seniors club, recreation center, retirement home .... "
See you in 2017!
You are at the top, ultra connected, your cell phone always in your hand, not a single moment without receiving and sending a sms, always on Facebook, Instagram several times a day and Snapchat is your friend ...
Here's Puzzable
You like sharing pics with your friends? assemble puzzles? PUZZABLE, the puzzle-photo-sharing application is for you, for fun, for competition, for communication, for all!
A nice little app that will allow you to send and receive pictures as a puzzle, the puzzle-picture message being obviously to assemble, it's much more fun
a Success Story
Gedaliah Gold Pastor and Zachary Matz ,two young newly graduated from University of Maryland who launched in 2014 a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter and raised $ 22.033 for developing their application.
During a search on the internet I found the story of this start-up, had a look of the crowfunding campaign and decided to contact the co-founders. That's Zachary Matz who answer me very kindly and told me all about the genesis of Puzzable adventure.
a few words with Zachary
Remember...
Just a few months ago, we met Caroline Imperato & Melanie Perin two young Speech therapist that presented us the concept of their game to learn grammar by playing.
Ah, la grammaire en puzzle !
Their participation in International Games Festival in Cannes was a succes. Caroline & Melanie had invested in an "author's Table" and met a large and varied audience during these 4 days.
Parents, children, publishers, professionals, or just curious have succeeded at their author’s table to discover the prototype of the game.
The feedbacks of the festival have been great and qualitative and as we know, discussions with potential editors are being on the roa but shhh… it’s quite secret
Fête des Jeux de Mougins
Caroline was contacted by the city hall of Mougins to participate in the event. Not think twice, prototype under the arm, she will present the concept of the game to fifteen children happy. Oh, and did I mention the main ...
The name of the game will be Gramzzle
Gramzzle ah, la grammaire en puzzle !
Gramzzle,a grammar-puzzle learning game!
April is the month of autism and especially
April 2, World Autism Awareness Day
All Around the world, events are organized to raise funds, make known the disease and inform the public about the various forms of autism and scientific advances.
2012 back to the project...
Mobilize artists to participate in a unique and collective work for autism. Fifty artists receive a puzzle piece in solid oak that will decorate according to their sensitivity. The works resulting remained exposed a few days, 20 - 24 April 2013, at the Espace Tajan before being put to auction.
The funds collected were donated to the Association Autisme France
It remains from this beautiful experience, a book that traces this human and artistic adventure "A Puzzle for Autism".
Order to Autisme France or Fnac.
Sunday, April the 3rd, took place the 1st Jigsaw puzzle championship of la petite Boissière
The Parents’ Association of Joan of Arc school organized its first puzzle contest on Sunday,April 3, 2016. The contest was held by teams of two, into 3 categories: Children (- 12 years), Mixed (child and adult) and Adults. A total of 70 participants, 35 teams were at this event.
Great Puzzles...
The originality of this contest is the selection of puzzles. Made especially for the occasion from local photos. The proposed puzzles are:
-
A fresco by the school children, 100 pieces puzzle for child category
-
An aerial view of the school, 300 pieces puzzle for the mixed category
-
An aerial view of the town, 500 pieces puzzle for the adult category
a few words from the organizers
"We can draw a positive balance of that day. People were happy and we got good feedback. The idea of local images for puzzles is fine. The puzzle of 500 pieces was quite complicated with many details, but quite achievable with a little more time.
We are very pleased with this first edition, we can renew this competition next year"
See you in 2017!
There is still a lot of good fresh snow on our mountains, so let's take the opportunity of a good piece of Peuff... (This term is used to name the freshly fallen snow).
But, what is the relation between ski and puzzles? There would be a puzzle contest organized by a ski resort? Unfortunately not, not yet, but it would be great! Imagine the program, raclette, Puzzle and tartiflette.
The point between Puzzle and skiing, is Art
And more precisely an artist
Boudro
Boudro is a Quebec artist, with a colorful Pop-Art universe, in love with New York and its yellow cabs, which have become his signature, he likes the commercial, logos, and iconic comics.
He dressed few gondolas of Courchevel for the 2011/2012 season, with his original works: "Pieces of Puzzle"
Saturday 12th March 2016, took place in Barvaux-Durbuy
the annual jigsaw contest "PuzzleDay".
31 teams enrolled in the 8 hours competition, We are puzzled ! was there...
So this is it, a new contest has passed, and it was again a great day for puzzles’ fans.
Clementoni puzzles are of good quality so we already know we will have a good time during the 8 hours puzzle contest of Barvaux-Durbuy. But when in addition to that, the organizer manages to get puzzles with varied size, shape and images, it’s just perfect! The organizer is so nice, and always available for all participants. There were prizes for everybody, as well as medals and trophies for the best ones. The music was in general at a good volume, and as an extra each team got a plate with some appetizers directly brought to their table!
We started the competition with a 500 pieces puzzle quite easy, representing a mouse in its home while the cat is on the watch… We are puzzled ! was probably still sleeping because our timing was not very good and we were some minutes behind the first team.
Then we had a panoramic 1000 pieces puzzle with Disney characters, and the gap was a bit increased. When we finished our Minions round puzzle of 213 pieces we were still behind.
The next puzzle was triptych of London photos, 500 pieces each part. We had to present the 3 parts assembled, and we decided to start all 3 puzzles at the same time instead of being the four of us completing the same puzzle one after the other: this allowed us to not bother one each other and to better distribute the tasks. I believe this tactic was the good one as we managed to finish our 3 puzzles before the team that had been ahead of us until then, and after that we were able to keep our advantage for the rest of the contest, while successively completing two 1000 pieces puzzles until getting to the…
Impossible puzzle of this year !!! This time there were no Minions, but hundreds of Olafs from the Disney movie Frozen… Thanks God there were "only" two hours left, just the time to sort the pieces, finish the frame, and find a "path" to link the edge to the princesses heads from the center, so those pieces would be part of the final counting…
20mn before the end, we finally did it and our victory shout must have destabilized our challengers because they hid their table so we could not see their progress… Maybe they were hoping that we would relax the pressure if we thought they had not done it too, but they do not know that our aim is not to win, but to do the best we can! This is why we kept up adding some pieces here and there until the end.
Finally we won the competition thanks to the 25 pieces we had more than the team who finished second. We won a 6.000 puzzle and a 2.000 puzzle. Plus the same 500 pieces puzzle for each team member, as well as a trophy and a medal that we always like to get!
Puzzles from the contest:
This year, Sophie and Patrice de Goncourt were present
and they have participated to the competition through their team Novabysse.
They were only two, but they finished third! Even though Sophie was absent for a moment in order to participate to the individual contest ; in fact she finished last but one as there were only 20mn left on the time clock; you won’t see very often such a bad result, so enjoy the news 🙂 Anyway their talent continues to amaze us…
This edition’s results portend a strong competition during the 12 hours Puzzle contest of Arlon on the 19th March… But it’s with great pleasure that we will put our leader’s position up for grabs, this is what makes it more interesting for all of us.
Kittens, 500 p.
Meanwhile, as Saturday had been such a perfect day, we wanted to put a little bit of competition in the air again on Sunday: so by pairs (We are puzzled ! vs Novabysse), we assembled the 500 pieces puzzles we had won the day before ; no surprise, Novabysse finished first their puzzle in 40 minutes, we had to add 6 small additional minutes to finish ours…
Usefull links:
http://puzzleday.weebly.com
http://www.clementoni.com
Come, follow me…
No need to search long to find lots of good reasons to spend some time in Prague. This destination is nice, full of history and the capital of Czech Republic is really charming.
So, why not take the opportunity to participate in the 9th edition of Puzzlemanie 2016 the largest puzzle contest of Czech Republic .
if your feet take you to Prague, here are some ideas
You can walk around the steep streets of the old town, wait in front of the astronomical clock to watch the ballet of automata that takes place every hour, stroll along the Charles Bridge, to contemplate the John Lennon Wall, visit the Kafka or Mucha Museum , enjoy a TRDELNI'K (Bun tape wound on cylinders that rotate on skewers for cooking, slightly sweet, sometimes sprinkled with crushed hazelnuts. the best are cooked over a wood fire).
Take a walk through the neighborhood of Malá Strana
Újezd
At number 33* there is a small shop with a red façade, a sign on the door informs you that the shop is generally open from 11h to 17h or 19h.
But the times may vary ... and in case of closure, a simple phone call they will open the store in 20-30 minutes ... .. I love
This small shop is ART PUZZLE, a workshop-boutique of a Czech artist Kata Kissoczy
Kata Kissoczy's Puzzles are unique handmade models, made in wood . Halfway between paintings and puzzles, they naturally find their place in a showcase or simply hung on the wall. The secret ? Shhh ... do not repeat it, some pieces are glued
The Puzzles of this artist are beautiful objects, and if you have friends who love puzzles here is an original gift idea.
*Art Puzzle
Újezd 33, Malá Strana, Praha 1
Maransart
by Sophie de Goncourt
Saturday, February 6, 2016,took place the 11th Jigsaw Puzzle Competition of Maransart, organized by "la pièce qui compte".
Our adventure to Maransart start with an announcement on the 8 hours of Barvaux. Patrice asks me: "Can we go?" Of course! And how about asking to the We are puzzled! to participate with us?
In no time, I contact Cathy via Facebook. But her team is already complete, however she tells me she has space for the 4 hours Maransart contest on the 6th February. I tell this to Patrice who directly answers: "Let’s go". And this is how starts our trip from the Sarthe region in France, to Belgium. We decide to go by train so we can rest a bit. Cathy and Patrick invite us to stay at their place. This sounds perfect !
There we are in Brussels, on a grey week-end. After a Friday evening eating a "raclette" and the Saturday’s brunch, we go to Maransart. We are welcomed by the organizers, surprised to see some French participating to their contest. As usual, the good mood of Belgian people enchant us. Some participants eager to win are less happy to see us here.
We are split in two rooms. Now this is new to us: when the puzzle is finished, we have to go and ring a bell!
I see that the puzzles have been chosen by puzzle lovers. The images are colorful, easy to assembly between teams of four. It’s a real pleasure to see organizers as crazy as the participants. We can discuss about small carton pieces with everybody. Of course, the refreshment stall is well provided, there is plenty to eat and to drink. And so, we are ready to win.
1h57 hours later, our jungle is finished. Patrick runs to ring the bell. We are the first ones to have completed our puzzle in the expert category. One of the organizers bring a pile of old puzzles, everyone can chose in the pile some puzzles to assemble or even take back home. As we are fanatics, we buy the other two puzzles of the contest and use the remaining 2 hours to puzzle some more.
At the prize-giving, the first three teams of each category gets a diploma and a trophy. The first prize in the expert category was missing in the collection of We are puzzled!. Now their collection is complete.
Maransart has been a very nice puzzling experience:
a cheerful atmosphere, perfect puzzles, plenty to eat and drink. What more could we have wanted? 🙂
Useful links:
Facebook Group "La Pièce qui Compte"
26th Jigsaw Puzzle Competition of Lanvéoc
A competition in two times
Lanvoc, peninsula of Crozon, Finister (French Brittany) hosted for the 26th time the Jigsaw Puzzle Championship. Wednesday, February 10 pre-selections & Saturday, February 13, 2016 the final
Organized by the association Arts et loisirs (Arts & hobby), this competition is original because it takes place in two stages. The pre-selections are made on Wednesday by categories, according to different age groups. Participants compete in two hours on the same puzzle. The five fastest are then selected to participate in Saturday's final.
Wednesday, February 10, 2016, 27 participants had come to try to qualify for the final. After a day of selection 20 participants were selected to participate in the final of Saturday, February 13.
Many gifts have rewarded the finalists. Mr Louis Ramone, Mayor of Lanvéoc, presented a cup to the winners of each series.
See you in 2017 for the 27th edition!
Two passionate develop a learning game,
"Ah, la grammaire en Puzzle..."
Behind this title, hiding a leisure-educational concept, a friendship, a project and a human adventure.
The adventure begins in Belgium, where Caroline is studying at the "Haute École" of the Province of Liege, to be Speech Therapist . She met Mélanie following the same course in the same university.
For his final thesis study "Welcome to the French oral syntax!" Caroline creates a pictorial material which allows it to stimulate 4 children of Turkish origin....
Today, both graduates, they are installed and work separately. Melanie Perin stayed at Liege where she is a Speech therapist in the Royal Institute for Disabled Hearing and Sight IRHOV .
Caroline Imperato exercises in the south of France where she opened her speech therapist office.
Their years of study sealed a strong friendship and a common project. Develop and publish materials developed in the Caroline final thesis.
"Use the puzzle has allowed us to reproduce the Turkish syntax surface structure which is an agglutinative language and bring a playful dimension. Our work has validated our hypothesis: the materials created would address the shortcomings inherent in the situation of bilingualism in children of Turkish origin. "
Since we consider present a version of the hardware more "For All".
You will see by yourself, it is quite possible to induce a grammatical awareness among toddlers.
Moreover, this material is completely adaptable to children who can read.
Play and practice grammar is possible!
A Speech therapist colleague, Michele Weber, seduced by the Project has completed the team. A graphic designer, Jean-Baptiste Pollien also joined the team to perfect the visual, the prototype is ready, hand-made, cut with the jigsaw and will be presented at the next International Games Festival in Cannes (south of France).
A part of the production could be done by the carpentry section of IRHOV
(Royal Institute For Handicapped People of Hearing and Sight) - Allowing disabled youth to get involved in the adventure.
"Children who help other children"
what a nice reciprocity!
Discover the original concept of Caroline Imperato & Melanie Perin at the International Games Festival in Cannes and test their game.
The concept
Learn to make simple sentences, grammatically correct and have fun. Induce grammatical consciousness in infants
The main aim of the game
Develop the syntax on both sides understanding & expression and build vocabulary (various selected themes such as fruits & vegetables, school supplies, clothing and crafts).
The main game mechanics
Each unit of a sentence is represented by a pictorial piece, abstract or written.
The goal is to create a pictorial sentence and / or written form of puzzle where the pieces vary in shape and color according to their nature and their grammatical function.
These pieces fit into each other from side to side like a small linear puzzle to bring a playful dimension. Wooden parts are created "generic / bosses" reproducing the different structures. Images of the same forms are to be placed on these wooden foundations.
A reward system is proposed to encourage the child.
The Sayings of the puzzle pieces are designated to verify, first, vocabulary and grammar induced.
Then, handling allows to build simple sentences correctly.
The idea is therefore to provide the correct sentence structures both auditory and visual fashion.
The originality of the game
- Use the puzzle as support
- visually represent the nature and functions of words
- induce grammatical consciousness from the 2nd year of kindergarten
- allow parents to help boost their (s) child (ren)
- reduce segmentation problems (cutting) during the transition to writing
- prevent any difficulties in grammar in kindergarten
- prevent difficulties in oral language
- the variety of possible constructions of sentences
- the possible use of smileys to encourage the child (reward system)
- is aimed at both pre-readers and readers ...
- and potential collaboration with an institute for young handicapped people (s) for the creation of the timber of the material!
*Travail de fin d’études, 2008-2009. Bienvenue dans la syntaxe orale française ! Création d’un matériel imagé qui permet de stimuler 4 enfants d’origine turque âgés de 4 ;10 à 5 ;6 ans – Mention obtenue : Bien
