Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Puzzles!






















You know what happens when you turn off the television and computer? Children begin to enjoy life. They sit together, talk and do a beautiful puzzle or two.

I bought these puzzles when I was at the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art a couple of years ago. I was thrilled to find the gallery and more than thrilled to find Claude Monet was the featured artist. I also got to see a few Renoir paintings. It was amazing. I was alone at the gallery, Dave was in a meeting, so I grabbed the headset and enjoyed every single picture while listening intently. It was so much fun. There was also a lovely gift shop filled with everything art! Toys, puzzles, posters, t-shirts, games and so on...a home schooling/classical schooling mother's dream. I came home with these two puzzles. Aren't they lovely?

Piatnik is an Austrian company. The webpage is not easy to navigate, as I "no sprechen sie deutsch".
Unless of course you click on the 'English' button ;-)

You can purchase these puzzles here, if you are interested.

I am also a fan of Ravensburger puzzles.

I guess you could say I'm a puzzle snob.

The Germans (and Austrians) have a way with puzzles, don't you think?

Have you done a puzzle lately?

11 comments:

Donna Boucher said...

We love our Ravensburger puzzles.
Katie can do a 300 piece. She likes it best when I sit with her...

I pick out the color groups and always do the outside first :o)

Speckledpup said...

oh jan, I haven't done a puzzle in a while.
we used to do them all the time at home and then when our family got together for anything, thanksgiving, birthdays, etc. After the meal, we'd clear the table and someone would dump out a puzzle and while we talked and visited we'd put together the puzzle....

you take me back.

Amy said...

Peyton is our big puzzle fan here. I like to do them too, but I usually don't unless we go on vacation. Then we always spread one out on the table of our room and work on it in the evenings after dinner.

We always buy a trailmap puzzle when we go skiing. We've got about half a dozen of those from various ski resorts - they're easy because the trails and lifts make the connections very obvious.

I have one of those Photomosaic puzzles, but I haven't opened it yet. One of these days.

*-;-*Jessie*-;-* said...

I did a puzzle the other day when I babysat the A. kids. =]

Your funny Mrs. Walworth! "English Button" hahahaha

Anonymous said...

I can't see any advantage to doing a puzzle over using computer or watching TV. Can you explain?

Anonymous said...

systematic puzzler here... we LOVE to set up a puzzle on our folding table and leave it up for everyone to work at during different times throughout the week. Our next challenge will be the 3-D type of puzzles.
Reply to Annonymous: The reason we like the puzzles is a)we always talk about things while doing it, and sometimes even have conversations that change the tone of our relationships for the better. b) it's a challenge, mind and body. c) it's gratifying to finish one and see it's beauty as a whole picture d)we never have to wait for a commercial to do something. e)no one fights over who gets to play f)teaches a whole slew of life skills in a very simple way.

Anonymous said...

apparantly, it doesn't however teach how to spell ANONYMOUS!
eek. sorry! lol

Anonymous said...

oops... forgot to say,
when we lived in Germany, we saw a 18,000 piece puzzle. I wanted to buy it for my friend who does 1,000-3,000 in a day. We couldn't afford it, so we opted for the 9,000 piece one instead. AMAZING.

Janet said...

Anon, watching TV or playing on the computer is *mostly* a mindless activity that seperates you from family members. I'm not saying a family cannot enjoy a movie together or occasionally play a game on the computer but we (my husband and I)fell in to a bad habit of allowing our children too much time on both. Chores weren't getting done, they were bickering with each other, and they were becoming lazy. Since we've limited their time we have seen 1) a cleaner house/bedrooms 2) better attitudes towards each other 3) more creative play and 4) more physical activity, just to name a few.

lammyann, thank you! I coudn't agree more. :)

Janet said...

Hannah, I'll have to give you more chores! How about doing the twelve loads of laundry that need to be done! :-P

owlhaven said...

Great puzzles!

Mary, mom to many