I am a big fan of puzzles as an activity. I am fairly good at them, my husband is fairly good at them, and our older child, A, has always been really good at them. W, our younger child put his earliest skill points into other activities but he’s lately been coming to puzzles as a quiet and calm activity he can do on his own at times. He’s still building up his puzzle building confidence and patience though. Luckily Ravensburger, one of my favorite puzzle brands, has lots of fun new designs coming out this year. We recently received a copy of Dinosaurs in Space, one of their newest puzzle sets for 2021.
Dinosaurs in Space is a three puzzle set. Each puzzle has 49 pieces, is roughly aimed at ages 5+ and it has a MSRP of $12.49. Each puzzle features a different brightly colored dinosaur floating in a gorgeous space scene complete with a space suit and helmet. The pictures are fun and nicely detailed without being too complicated. It’s easy enough to use each dinosaur as an anchor to sort out where to start building the puzzle. There are also planets and other space related objects to help build the image up. What really helps younger puzzlers is that the pieces have unique marks on the back to help tell which pieces belong to the same puzzle so that a kid can focus on one puzzle at a time and sort the pieces if they get jumbled together. They also each have a colored picture that gives a detailed look at each final image. If your kid wants a challenge, they can try to make the puzzles without presorting them. The puzzles are a nice solid quality with every piece being a unique design and they click together and apart with ease.
W took to building the first puzzle pretty well. He focused on the edge pieces first and then moved onto the dinosaur, which knocked out a solid bit of it. The rest of the image was a matter of matching colors and piece shapes. The first puzzle took him about 20 minutes, but as I watched him move onto the next one, I saw his confidence grow and his time decrease. The puzzle is aimed for kids at about age 5 and W is in the first grade, but not quite as practiced with doing puzzles. I do feel like this set had really made him take enough time to complete a puzzle. Shortly after watching him do these ones, I noted he was willing to sit long enough to get a 64 piece puzzle built so I feel like this set helped him build up his skill in a way that will get him to the puzzles in his age range faster. Overall, I think the age range is about right. If your kid struggles with a certain size, bump down to one a bit smaller and let them build their skill up.
W had a lot of fun with this set and I love the screen-free learning and logic building that comes from making puzzles. Three quality puzzles for that price is absolutely worth it and I think any young dinosaur loving kid will have fun putting these together. You can find your own copy of Dinosaurs in Space here on Amazon.
