Wooden Puzzles Teach About Animals

Try a wooden puzzle to teach your children about animals. Children love animals and love solving puzzles. You can get a Forest Friends Wood Puzzle, Grand Canyon Wildlife Wood Puzzle, Safari Friends Wood Puzzle, and more to get your children excited about learning. Sometimes as parents it is a challenge to get our children excited about learning. Do you hear "I'm bored" throughout the summer or spring breaks? Wooden jigsaw puzzles are small enough they do not take all day to do yet interesting enough to keep them interested. Behind the pieces of these puzzles are interesting facts about the animals in the puzzle. This makes learning fun. Try some wooden puzzles this summer, you won't be disappointed.

Last Supper Jigsaw Puzzle

Has even the Last Supper been supersized? Now researchers are saying the food in famous paintings of the meal has grown by biblical proportions over the last millennium. Does the food in this Last Supper Jigsaw Puzzle look supersized to you? Using a computer, these researchers compared the size of the food to the size of the heads in 52 paintings of Jesus Christ and his disciples at their final meal before his death. What they found it that the size of the main dish grew 69 percent; the size of the plate, 66 percent, and the bread, 23 percent, between the years 1000 and 2000. Why is the food in paintings like this and panoramic jigsaw puzzles portraying the Last Supper being supersized? The Bible says the Last Supper took place on a Passover evening but gives little detail on specific foods besides bread and wine. "There's nothing else mentioned. They don't say there's a fruit cup or carrot cake," though other foods such as fish, eel, lamb and even pork have appeared in paintings through the years. The paintings used in the study were featured in the book "Last Supper," published in 2000 by Phaidon Press. They include perhaps the most famous portrayal of the meal, by Leonardo da Vinci. Computer technology allowed them to scan, rotate and calculate images regardless of their orientation in the paintings. Details are in the April issue of the International Journal of Obesity. Some do not think this is very meaningful science. We have real life examples of the increase in portion size — all you have to do is look at what's being sold at fast-food restaurants. A more contemporary test would be to analyze portion sizes in Super Bowl commercials. That would be a much more meaningful snapshot of how this society's relationship to food has changed.

Choosing A Jigsaw Puzzle

Choosing a jigsaw puzzle for the first time or less experienced puzzlers should choose an image which has various distinct areas of color. You should also choose a puzzle with an image that appeals to you. For example; if you enjoy the oceans and beaches you might want to start with a beach puzzle or ocean puzzles. Photos or drawings with distinct lines are easier than paintings because the brush strokes cause object boundaries to become blurred. Also the artist may use the exact same color in several places on the painting. A first timer may wish to try 300, 500 or 1000 piece jigsaw puzzles for starters, and then progress to a larger number of pieces from there.

John Wayne Jigsaw Puzzle

When you think of Legendary American actors, who comes to mind first. For me it has to be John Wayne. This John Wayne puzzle, created from the US Postal Service commemorative stamp collection, depicts the rough and tough man we call the DUKE. He was a giant on and off the screen and no one who observed his struggle in those final days could doubt that his strength was real. For an incredible 25 years he was rated at the top in box-office appeal. His films grossed over $700 million. This is a record no performer in Hollywood has come close to matching. John Wayne was more than an actor; he was a force around which films were made. As Elizabeth Taylor Warner stated last May when testifying in favor of the special gold medal Congress struck for him: “He gave the whole world the image of what an American should be.” If you are looking for a good cowboy puzzle to put together this might be the one.

Large Format Puzzles

There are many people who love putting together jigsaw puzzles but are getting older and have a hard time handling and seeing the small pieces. There are large format puzzles out there that have bigger than average pieces. This makes them easier to see and easier to handle. Children that do not have their small motor skills perfected yet can start solving these large piece jigsaw puzzles. Does this mean the puzzles are less challenging? No. They are still a challenge to put together, the pieces are just easier to see and handle. Here are a couple of large format puzzles. Do you think they would be fun to put together?

Unconditional Love

Take a look at these two 1000 piece puzzles. We love our pets so much. One out of every three households in America have pets. Many of them being dogs. These two dog puzzles show us just how much we love our dogs and how frustrated we can be with them at the same time. Sometimes having pets can be like having children. They can be a companion that will give you unconditional love. Our dogs will typically love us no matter what. How many times do you walk in from a long day and walk right past your dog who is sitting at the door wagging his tail in anticipation of a glance or a two minute pet on the head. The next day there he sits again. Then when they do something to upset you, like walk on your freshly painted porch like the ones in this dog puzzle, how can you be upset with them when they give you those innocent puppy eyes. You know they would not do anything intentionally to upset you but yet you yell and scowl at them and the next day there they sit again, waiting patiently for a mere two minutes of your time. If that is not unconditional love I do not know what is. We should treat our loved ones with this kind of unconditional love and the world might be a better place. Will you try harder to be patient with your children after reading this?

Selecting The Best Chocolates

When eating chocolate you always want to choose the best chocolate. Does that mean you need to know the difference between all the pieces on this chocolates puzzle, or the difference between Godiva and Hershey's? Nope. Choosing the best chocolate just means knowing what's in it. By paying close attention to the ingredients, you will be able to select the best chocolate most of the time.

The first thing to do is flip over the chocolate and look at the ingredients. You should recognize them all. Dark Chocolate should all have: 1) Cocoa liquor. Sometimes called cocoa, cocoa solids, cocoa mass, or chocolate. (It is not actually a liquor and does not contain any alcohol.) 2) Sugar. Molasses, cane juice, and other natural sweeteners are acceptable substitutes. 3) Cocoa butter. 4) Vanilla is optional. Vanillin is a fake vanilla made from pine sap. You should avoid it! 5) Soy lecithin is also optional. This just helps the chocolate bind together better. It is sold as a health food supplement, although some argue that it is not healthy. 6) Finally any add-ins, such as nuts, fruits, or flavorings but make sure none of them are artificial or hydrogenated. The ingredients should roughly fall in that order too. The Cocoa liquor should always be first though.

Milk chocolate can have all of the above, plus milk, which will be in the form of whole milk, milk powder, cream, etc. There's less cocoa mass in milk chocolate, so it doesn't need to be first on the list. Usually sugar will be first. White chocolate doesn't have the cocoa mass, just the cocoa butter.

Chocolate has different flavors depending on the species of bean and the conditions in which the bean was grown. Unfortunately much of the world's cocoa is grown under brutal working conditions, often by child slaves. If you purchase Fair Trade or Organic chocolate you will be paying a little more but you will also help to make a better planet and get better chocolate too.

Also, pay attention to the packaging. If they didn't care much about the package, they probably don't care much about the chocolate. Just like most things. If you bought a chocolate puzzle that came in a dented up box you might think the puzzle is damaged too.

That’s all there is to it! Simple, right? Next time you’re in the store, try this test and compare a Hershey’s with a Godiva bar. Hershey’s may not be the world’s best chocolate, but at least it doesn't contain butter oil, hydrogenated oils, and vanillin like Godiva’s does!

The Earth's In Our Hands

Hey Kids what is Pollution? Is it stinky stuff? Is it muck? Is it poison? Yes, it is all those things... and much, much more. You can see some types of pollution, like smoke but there is so much of it that you do not even know is there. You cannot smell it, hear it, or feel it. Yet you're eating it and drinking it and breathing it most of the time. And what is worse is that all this muck affects all other forms of life on Earth too. You can find pollution made by people just about everywhere on the planet. Even remote places in the middle of the dessert to the cold waters of the Antarctic are badly polluted by nasty chemicals made by people. The Polar bears, whales and seals have poisonous chemicals made by people in their bodies. These nasty things kill many animals and make others sick -- including penguins in the Antarctic. They also kill people and make them ill too. There's nowhere on the planet left with no pollution; not even the bottom of the sea or high up in the air. This is bad news and I'm very sad about it. Look at how beautiful the ocean can be. Wouldn't it be nice if your children could enjoy it too? I think we can all make a difference though. There is a cool Ravensburger jigsaw puzzle at the top of the page that says it all. The name of the puzzle is " The Earth's In Our Hands ". Ravensburger puzzles are the best puzzles out there and by putting together one of these puzzles, framing it and putting it on your wall, you can show your support for our earth. Will you do something today to make the world a better place?

Visual Stimulation Helps Learning

Look at this Sweets And Treats 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle. What do you see? How does it make you feel? Some experts believe what we take in through our eyes to be the most influential of all our senses. Our brain takes in and stores all the conscious and subconscious, subtle and overt nuances of all we see. These "imprints" can have a positive or negative influence on our ability and speed at which we learn. For example, then party puzzle picture above that has all sorts of candy, cupcakes, candles, etc., will imprint our consciousness much differently that a picture of a burning house, or a picture of a recently bombed city in Iraq. When we see these two images, the sweets and treats jigsaw puzzle above may invoke feelings of peace, love, togetherness and uplifting states of mind. The picture of a burning house may invoke feelings of stress and sadness. Science shows we learn better when we feel at peace. Allowing our young children to see destructive images does not activate the parts the brain congruent with accelerated learning power. On the contrary, it actually blocks some types of learning. Do you think soving an uplifting puzzle with your children will put them in a state of mind more condusive to learning?

World's Most Difficult Jigsaw Puzzle

I thought I had found some hard jigsaw puzzles in my day but boy was I mistaken. One tough puzzle is a puzzle that only has nine pieces but has 300,000 wrong ways to put it together and only one right way. I thought this was the most difficult jigsaw puzzle in the world. Then I found a 500 piece jigsaw puzzle that is double-sided. It has the same picture on both sides, rotated 90 degrees from each other. Jigsaw puzzles are cut in a press stamped out like cookie dough. That is why the top of the puzzle has a groove and the bottom is flat. Now having a double sided puzzle will make any puzzle hard, but any savvy puzzler would easily pick up on this and would be able to tell which side is up and which side is down. Well guess what, there is still another twist to these puzzles. These puzzles are cut once from each side. The vertical locks are cut from the front and the horizontal locks are cut from the back. Now there is no way to tell which side is which! You have to compare both sides of each piece. If the piece doesn't fit exactly, you've got it wrong. I believe this is the world's most difficult puzzle. I bet you can't wait to try this one can you?

Trains - When And Why

Have you ever been trying to solve a train puzzle and start wondering how long trains and railways have been around? Most people think of the railways as being invented only a couple hundred years ago. They actually had railways over 500 years ago. Back then railways were built in European mines to help move coal from one end of the mine to the other. Miners used wagons that had a metal pin on the bottom which was fitted between two wooden planks which allowed them to guide the wagons through the mines along these planks. The miners called these wagons "dogs" because of the noise they made. There were no engines, or even horses to push or pull the wagons along, the miners had to push them around themselves.

The first railway was built in Britain in 1604, but it was called a wagonway back then. It was made of wood, was only two miles long, and cost $166. Wooden railways started to spread throughout the country. During the 1700s and 1800s is when people began making them out of iron. The nice thing about iron railways is they could carry heavier loads. By this time people were getting tired of pushing these wagons so then they were pulled by horses instead of people. The trains in these train puzzles have come a long way since the old horse pulled trains. Do you think this is where they came up with horse power?

Stuffed Frogs Aid In Teaching

Looking for a unique gift? How about a stuffed frog. Sounds unusual, I know, but children love frogs, and they love stuffed animals so why not? There are a lot of different species of frogs and this could be a good way to get our kids into learning more about frogs. Are frogs the most important thing our children need to learn about? NO. However, it is the skill of learning that is important and stuffed frog toys can aid in this learning process. There are parts of the US that have deformed frogs and research is being done to find out why they are like this. If frogs are being affected by something in nature causing them to be born with more than two eyes or only three legs, etc., who is to say that the same thing could not happen to humans. It is good to get our children into learning about all kinds of animals. Also, frogs are cute, fun and some are colorful. What do you think about a child cuddling up to a plush frog right next to his teddy bear?

Red-Eyed Tree Frog Puzzle

It is important for the red-eyed tree frog to blend in with its environment. Being green helps them blend in with the leaves. Here is a challenge for you. Can you find the red-eyed tree frog in the frog puzzle on the left? There are two reasons that a red-eyed tree frog needs to blend in with its environment. First so their preditors cannot see them. Second so their prey cannot see them. They are nocturnal, which means they are active at night. They rest during the day. When one of these frogs sits still on a green leaf with its legs tucked in and eyes shut, it seems almost invisible. So did you find the red-eyed tree frog in the frog jigsaw puzzle?

Frogs Gone Wild

Have our frogs gone wild or is it something in the water? In August 1995, a bunch of kids from Minnesota, who love frog puzzles, found some frogs that had some weird characteristics and didn't look like normal frogs. Some of the frogs had missing legs, some had extra legs, and some were missing eyes or had some other deformities. The children were very worried about the frogs so they went to their teacher, and together contacted the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. Thanks to the watchful efforts of these children, lots of research has been done to find out what is causing these deformities. Unfortunately no one really knows for sure what is causing them. Some possible causes that scientists are researching include: contaminated water, ultraviolet radiation caused by a depleted ozone layer, parasites, or chemicals in the environment. Have you found any of these frogs in your area or seen any frog jigsaw puzzles with these frogs depicted on them?

Living With Lions

If you like lions, doing lion puzzles, or watching natural documentaries, you probably have heard of George Adamson. His nickname was "Baba ya Simba" which means Father of Lions. He lived an amazing life living with lions. In his award winning documentary Born Free, he managed to live among lions and make them treat him as an equal. The relationships and mutual trust he developed with the lions was truely amazing. He was tragically shot by Somalian bandits when he was coming to the aid of some tourists and died. He is no buried in the reserve, next to a lion named Boy, his lion friend. If you like lion stories and pictures of lions, how about trying to solve a lion puzzle and then frame it and hang it on the wall. It makes a great conversation piece.

Tiger Talk

Tigers are intriguing. Children have a fascination with tigers and enjoy solving tiger puzzles. We should all be concerned about our wild tigers. Originally there were 8 subspecies of tigers. Today only 5 remain. The Bali Tiger met its demise in the 1940's, the Caspian Tiger in the 1970's and the Javan Tiger, believe it or not, met it's demise in the 1980's, that's right the 1980's. Wild tigers are becoming extinct due to a reduction in habitat and the use of tiger parts for Chinese medicines. Experts say that in as little as five years, there could be no wild tigers left in the world. Although tigers are at the top of the food chain they still have one predator.....MAN. The more we take away from their habitat the less room there is for the tigers and their prey. If we want them to stick around we have to protect both. Tigers look cute but they are dangerous. About 50 people a year are killed by tigers. They do not purr like domestic cats and their fur is as unique as the human fingerprint. If you shave all the fur off of the tiger they will still be striped because their skin is striped too. Most tigers are orange with black stripes and a white under body and jowl. A whit tiger is not an albino. All white tigers like the one in the picture of the tiger puzzle , are believed to have descended from a single white Bengal male called Mohan. Did you know tigers live about 10 to 15 years in the wild but in captivity they can live up to 20 years? There is so much more to learn about tigers. What do you think about tigers becoming extinct?