Fantastic puzzles!

I am a big fan of Melissa & Doug. (http://www.melissaanddoug.com/) They are a US company that make educational toys for children. A couple of months ago, I bought 2 wooden peg puzzles by Melissa & Doug at the Toys R Us at Empire Shopping Gallery. We went to the grand opening of the Toys R Us, and got ourselves a free membership card. Melissa & Doug's wooden puzzles are just gorgeous and safe. No rough edges, no wooden splinters.


Salma loves her peg puzzles! She plays with them almost everyday, and has not gotten tired of them yet.

One of the puzzles that I bought for her is the "See-Inside Numbers Peg Puzzle" (pictured below). For the first few weeks, we just concentrated on getting Salma to place the pieces back into their slots on her own. It took a bit of practice, because I had to teach her what the words "Turn around" and "Pusing" (the words "turn around" in Malay) meant, and how to do it with the puzzle piece. So she would have a puzzle piece in her hand that was upside down, and she'd be trying to force it into the puzzle slot, and I would tell her, "Turn it around… pusing…" At first it was hard for her, but now it's easy.

After she had mastered putting the puzzle pieces back in place, she came up with a whole new game using her "See-Inside Numbers Peg Puzzle." I was pretty amazed because she came up with the idea all by herself, and played it with me one night before bedtime. Each puzzle slot has a picture that gets hidden once the puzzle piece is in place. For example, the puzzle piece for number "4" has a picture of 4 mice in the slot. With all the puzzle pieces already in their places (and thus covering the hidden pictures), she would ask me, "Mummy, where is mouse?" And I would have to remember where the hidden picture of the mice is and point to the number.

Of course, I would pretend not to know, and I would point to number 8 and ask, "Is it here?"

And she would say, "Bukaaaaan… (Nooooo…)"

Then I would point to number 4, and ask, "Is it here?"

And she would remove the puzzle piece to reveal the correct picture, and yell out, "Yes! Yay!!"

And then it would be my turn to ask her.

It actually took her awhile to memorize where all the different pictures are situated, and for awhile she got confused over the ladybird picture and the flower picture. For some reason, they looked the same to her. But now she knows the difference.

We play this "find the hidden picture" game so often that I am bored of it already. But Salma is not. But Mummy is! So I want to go to the Toys R Us and get her the See-Inside Alphabet Peg Puzzle. Then we can learn the ABCs and play the memory game. I can't wait! I haven't gone to the Toys R Us yet, but I think I will do it sometime this week. :D