Working a California Jigsaw Puzzle Together is a Great Family Activity
California jigsaw puzzles are beautiful. Working them together as a family can
help children and adults develop or refine many important skills. These include management skills as the family plans who will work on which part of the puzzle; organizational skills as one sorts pieces; and spatial relations and analytical skills as one begins to learn and predict which pieces will fit together and why.
Learn more about the benefits of working jigsaw puzzles.
Adults will find that working puzzles may help ward off senility, since both sides of the brain need to work together while completing a jigsaw puzzle. Working puzzles exercises the short-term memory as you try to remember just where that piece you saw that will fit in the hole is, or where the hole is that a piece you have in your hand will fit. It's a more complex version of the card game
Concentration.
As families sit around a table and put puzzles together, they not only develop brain skills, but they also have plenty of opportunities to talk to each other. We often don't spend much time getting to know our other family members because we hardly ever make time to sit down with each other in a relaxed setting.
Working puzzles together is an informal way for children to spend quality time with parents and siblings or wives with husbands. If the conversational well needs priming, one can always talk about the puzzle working process.
Why California Puzzles?
So why work jigsaw puzzles with scenes of California on them? Why not? California is the third largest state in America. It has some of the most famous amusement parks. It is a large producer of wine. It has scenery that encompasses mountains, deserts, volcanoes, beaches, rugged coasts, large cities, growing fields, orchards, and a variety of fauna and flora.
As a family works California puzzles, children can learn a bit of geography, no matter what state or country they live in.
Adults can see places they've never been, or
families can remember and reminisce about places they have visited as they work puzzles with the photos of those places on them.
California is home to some of the most beautiful places in America. Of course, I may be a bit biased, since I'm a native Californian. I currently live on the California Central Coast, but I used to live in Southern California and was one of the first visitors to Disneyland when it was built. My dad helped build it.
Now I live among the vineyards in
Templeton. I often walk the downtown area of
Paso Robles, as well as its vineyards. I love walking the boardwalk of
Cambria and the beaches of the
San Luis Obispo County South Coast. I never go anywhere without my camera.
I enjoy sharing the beauty of my state with others. I share photos of my local area of Templeton and Paso Robles in my blog,
Capturing the Paso Robles Area with My Camera, and
I love making Zazzle puzzles of some of my favorite local scenes, especially of the coast, the trees, and the missions.
You can see all these puzzles together from this Zazzle link.
Zazzle puzzles come in two sizes. Both come in lovely gift boxes with the image on the top so you can see what the finished product should look like. The 8" x 10" size has 110 pieces. The 11" x 14" size has 252 pieces. Both are suitable only for those over three years of age. Below are some photos I have used on the puzzles you can access from the link above. I took these photos at the
Santa Barbara Mission. They are just two views of this mission I put on puzzles.
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| My Favorite Puzzle of the Santa Barbara Mission, © B. Radisavljevic |
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| This image appears on my most popular Santa Barbara Mission Puzzle from Zazzle |
Below is one of the many beach scenes I put on
puzzles of the California coast.
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This photo of the rocky coast of Cambria also appears on a Zazzle puzzle. © B. Radisavljevic
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I have even more
puzzles with scenes from the Paso Robles wine country. These are mostly of vineyards, tasting rooms, and even grape processing. In my puzzles grapes are shown on the vine both green and ripe and even withering when left on the vines after harvest.
Vineyard jigsaw puzzles show vineyards in summer when they are green and in autumn when their leaves turn lovely shades of red and gold. Some of these would be just right to work while you are waiting for a midnight toast on New Year's Eve at home. Here are a couple of favorite photos I used on these puzzles.
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Vineyard at Harvest Time, © B. Radisavljevic
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Patio of Croad Tasting Room in Paso Robles, © B. Radisavljevic
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Although I love making puzzles at Zazzle, they may not be big enough to satisfy some people.
Amazon's jigsaw puzzles feature California places I have not visited with a camera. Some puzzle pictures feature art work rather than photographs. The topics for which you can find
1000-piece puzzles give you many choices. Here are some of my California puzzle favorites.
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Next time you want to spend
quality time with your family without leaving home, plan a
family puzzle party. Pop corn, make hot chocolate, and work a California jigsaw puzzle. Pick up one now while you are thinking about it. You won't be sorry, because you never know when the next rainy day or next power outage will occur. Be prepared.
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