Puzzle Fun with Octonauts….

This month we received the Octonauts 4 in a box Jigsaw set from Ravensburger  for Ben to review! Ben is puzzle mad and this was his first puzzle for the Ravensburger Puzzle club so when it arrived he was very excited!

Jigsaws are a great rainy day activity, and we’ve had a lot of that recently! I think it’s great that Ben is such a big fan of puzzles as they are a fantastic way of developing co-ordination and lateral thinking at a young age!

The box shows images of the four different puzzles which each have a different coloured border. Three of these feature characters from the popular Cbeebies animated show, Captain Barnacles, Peso Penguin and Kwazii Kitten, and the fourth shows the three of them together. Ben couldn’t wait to get into the box and get started!

As usual he tipped the contents  into a big pile on the floor with a cheeky grin! Luckily as the edges of each piece were colour co-ordinated it was easy for us to pick out the pieces we wanted for each puzzle. He began with the ‘easiest’ one with just 12 pieces, this was also the one that featured Captain Barnacles his favourite Octonauts character! Ben found the corner pieces first and was able to complete the whole outer edge without any help from Mummy! After I helped him find out the middle pieces and put them in their own little pile he was able to put them all in place! Declaring ‘Octonauts to the Rescue’ as he completed it he then let me a quick photo before breaking it all up again and moving on to the Green one!  We were able to complete all four and he kept them all together to proudly show daddy when he came home fro work!

I really like this set. The four separate scenes have increasing numbers of pieces to encourage development. The set is aimed at ages 3+ which I think is ideal. Ben is four and after a few plays with this is now able put all of the first two scences together himself and only needs a little bit of Mummy’s help with the other two. The familiar characters keep his attention focused and I was rather surprised at how long he was able to sit and play with these at a time as he can sometimes be easily distracted! The pieces themselves are great quality, really sturdy and fit together smoothly, and the box is robust and ideal for storing the pieces in! Over the last few weeks this has become a firm favourite and is the first jigsaw he will choose from the shelf!   

Read more reviews over on the Ravensburger Puzzle club blog...