At a fair, that I was exhibiting at over the weekend, I had an interesting question put across to me, ”Are there any puzzles for 4 to 6 year olds”. “Well, … ” I started but then realised that I was not that sure.
I started the process of deduction (as one would when concerning puzzles), you have the beginners puzzle that are in the shapes of cubes.
Then there a
re the first jigsaws made of 3 pieces. These usually attract the attention of 2+ year olds.
The next level are 9 and 12 pieces – these fill in the age group up to 3.
But then I had to stop myself, because puzzles are the same as learning a language or learning to write, you need to practice building them. By repeating the process over and over again, we become more confident and quicker to solve problems. If a child is introduced to puzzles but then does not have many opportunities to play with them, then he will not be able to move onto the next level as quickly as another child would do.
Anyhow, if we continue to think that the toddler in question does practice building the jigsaw enough times then by the age of 4 he/she should manage a 40 piece puzzle with ease.
And here I stop again because the next number of pieces in a jigsaw is 100. This is a large jump for such a young person. When searching the Internet there are 
only a few 60 piece puzzles out there. The question is “Where are the inbetweeners?”. Do we have to wait until our children are old enough to have the patience and concentration to tackle a 100 piece jigsaw or do we ask the designers to create more puzzles for 4-6 year olds?
As a supplier of toys – I will look into it but don’t wait around! I am not sure I will manage to get the processes in motion quick enough for our young ones not to out grow the 60 piece ones.