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Domino’s Puzzle

Published 22 September 2015 | By wap

Puzzles for early Child Development

Published 10 July 2015 | By wap

Le Jeu est le travail de l’enfant. (Jean Chateau *).
Game is the Child's work

Game holds a very essential part in Child development. It enables children understanding and taming the surrounding world, comprehending its functioning and acting in any situation that may occur.

Game enables Child socialization.

Puzzles in Early Child Development Kit

In the Early Child Development Kit, 5 out of the 16 games proposed are Puzzles.

Intended for the little ones, the kit is a recreational and teaching material created by UNICEF in order to improve support for the young children caught in conflicts and emergency.

A simple and well ilustrated activity guide explains how to use each item depending on children's age and interest.

This box is filled with puzzles and games. Puzzles in order to learn to count, recognize shapes, stimulate imagination, box to stack and sort, paintings, books and puppets for storytelling, drawing material, soap and water container for promoting hygiene.

Find out below the pages dedicated to puzzles from the UNICEF activity guide :

Board Puzzle

Chain Puzzle

Puzzle Blocks

Counting Circle

Jigsaw Puzzle

Access to complete activity guide

A Treasure Box of Activities

*Jean CHATEAU (17/07/1908 – 04/08/1990), was a professor of psychology, philosophy, doctor in literature and Director of the Institute of psychological and psychosocial studies - university of Bordeaux, specialist of game and child education.

40763 pièces coupées main – Dave EVANS

Published 30 June 2015 | By wap

Go to England…

Published 9 June 2015 | By wap

Aujourd’hui nous avons complété notre inscription au "2015 British Jigsaw Championship", qui aura lieu le dimanche 12 juillet à Newmarket.

Je suis impatiente de participer à ce tournoi, qui sera notre deuxième compétition internationale : en effet nous avons participé en 2013 au championnat d’Espagne à Madrid, nous avons fièrement représenté la communauté internationale et avons décroché une très jolie 5^ème place. Cette expérience a été très positive, et pas seulement par le fait de retourner à Madrid ou j’ai longtemps vécu, et d’y retrouver mes amis.

World’s Largest Jigsaw Puzzle – Très Grand Puzzle

Published 2 June 2015 | By wap

ASBL Ciles à Chièvre

Published 30 March 2015 | By wap

We are puzzled ! a encore fait des folies …

Ce samedi 28 mars, l’asbl Ciles à Chièvre, organisait une expo-vente de puzzles.

Cette association organisait des concours de puzzle depuis 1994 afin de récolter des fonds pour ses œuvres (pour en savoir plus, je vous invite à consulter leur site http://www.ciles.be/ ).

Nous avions d'ailleurs participé à la 19ème édition du Tournoi de puzzle du Hainaut organisé en Mars 2012 et remporté la compétition (pour voir le classement : http://ciles.be/CilesEchos53.pdf).

Ce fut d'ailleurs le premier tournoi que nous avons remporté.

Malheureusement nous n’avons pas pu participer à nouveau puisqu’en 2013 le tournoi a été reporté en Avril (nous étions en vacances aux États-Unis) et en 2014 nous étions en vacances de ski… Et depuis, CILES s’est vue dans l’obligation d’arrêter d’organiser ce tournoi, notamment suite à un soucis avec la salle où se déroulait habituellement le tournoi, et aux coûts toujours plus élevés qui leur empêchaient de faire un bénéfice.

Nous avons contribué cette année en leur achetant 9 puzzles… Nous avons finalement fait d’une pierre deux coups, car non seulement nous avons apporté notre modeste aide financière, mais en plus cela nous a donné une raison pour enfin ranger notre « collection » de puzzles, qui se trouvait éparpillée un peu partout dans les divers placards de notre appartement : nous avons aménagé une armoire spéciale, et en avons profité pour faire l’inventaire de nos puzzles.

Voici le résultat de notre week-end de rangement :

12h puzzle Arlon – 1st Edition

Published 23 March 2015 | By wap

On Saturday 21th March 2015, was held the first edition of the 12h hours puzzle contest of Arlon. Of course We are puzzled ! has participated, even more as it was the last contest of the Belgian season for jigsaw puzzle contests.

Upon our arrival, we immediately had a welcome committee just as we were the national selection during a football world cup.

"Ah, it’s you the famous team who seems to be the favorite today!"

This has given us an idea already of how would pass the next 12 hours: spectators were regularly visiting us to see our progress and to ask us about "our secret". There was even a journalist from "L’Avenir" (Luxemburg region) who came to ask us some questions…

Personally I would have preferred to remain a little bit more anonymous, but being for once the “stars” of the day was not that bad. And also, the biggest advantage was that for once the controllers were already next to us each time we were about to complete a puzzle, so we did not have to wait long before starting the next one (as it happened a lot during the 24h puzzle contest of Hannut in particular…). Also our status of favorite team was quickly confirmed as we were already ahead after the first puzzle. Our lead increased throughout the day, and after 12 exhausting hours we won the competition.
I have to say that the strongest teams did not participate that day, so we did not have true opponents. By the way the team that made it second included two of our usual members. So we have made the most of our hour of glory, because I bet that this contest will quickly get known and will attract the strongest and well organised Belgian teams.

Until then, in my opinion this first time was quite a success, despite some small details that could be improved. I think in particular about the sound system which had some little issues. Another thing, is that the sponsor was Jumbo, and two of the puzzles distributed had already been done during the last 24h puzzle contest of Hannut. But apart from that, all the rest was perfect. The organizing team was very nice, the catering was quite good, the layout of the tables, the material, lights, etc… was very good. And even more, the prizes given to the winners were not "just more" puzzles.

I hope the Kiwanis club from Arlon will remember their proposition to invite us next year, because We are puzzled ! will most certainly participate again.

Puzzles from the contest:

PuzzleDay Durbuy-Barvaux

Published 16 March 2015 | By wap

On Saturday 14th March, took place in Barvaux the annual jigsaw contest "PuzzleDay", sponsored in particular by Clementoni. We are puzzled! have successfully taken up the challenge and finished first of the 31 teams enrolled in the 8 hours competition.

It is always a pleasure to participate to this contest.

Clementoni puzzles are really enjoyable: the quality is good, the pieces are pleasant to manipulate and interlock well.

This year, the organization committee had arranged two surprises for the challengers:

Number one, the first puzzles were of 500 pieces, so numerous teams were able to go back home with several puzzles (this does not happen in contests where the puzzles are harder: the weakest teams don’t usually get many puzzles).

We found this was a very nice idea, and it was motivating for all the teams.

The second surprise was not very appreciated by us, to be honest… The seventh and last puzzle was a 1.000 pieces one, representing the "minions", and very pertinently called "impossible puzzle"… Although we still had 2h30 ahead to complete this puzzle, we have only been able to assemble 270 pieces…

This puzzle could be a nice challenge when comfortably installed at home, but my personal opinion is that this level of difficulty should not be part of a family contest. I can understand the strategy followed by the organization: it was a way to ensure that no team would finish and therefore there would be no more puzzle to distribute…
But for us, spending 2h30 hours on the same puzzle has been quite boring. And as there was no possibility to significantly progress, we quickly got demotivated, which is a pity…
Nevertheless it remains a lovely competition, and we are proud to have participated and to present to you the puzzles’ selection.