For those who are not aware of the benefits of mosaics, I will describe a few points:
- mosaics are a tool for the targeted development of fine motor skills. The very development of fine motor skills stimulates the part of the brain located next to the part responsible for speech. Thus, when playing mosaic, indirect stimulation of the “speech” part of the brain occurs.
- Playing with mosaics introduces children to diligent and monotonous activities.
- For children from 3 years old, mosaic provides scope for creativity - making patterns.
Mosaic details can be used for educational activities:
- with flowers. The most popular exercise is sorting by color;
- with counting, using them as counting material;
- with shapes, laying out geometric shapes;
- about the concept of symmetry. Lay out half the pattern, then ask your child to lay out the other half;
- the concept of parallels and perpendiculars for older preschoolers.
Features of playing with mosaics at 1-2 years old. When purchasing mosaics for children of the second and third years, do not expect much from the mosaic. Mosaic for one-year-old babies is not intended for laying out patterns, but for getting acquainted with colors and gaining the skills to attach parts to a base. A child at this age will only learn to put the parts on the convex base. There is no talk of creative drawing from colored chips in a year or even two. For example, only at the age of 2, Yana learned to fold the first flowers according to a pattern and fill the entire canvas.
The best mosaics for little ones (1-2 years old)
I would like to start this review with Quercetti towers, but they are constantly disappearing from stock, so I will start with Stellar. Quercetti is the second mosaic.
Stellar mosaic for kids
Impressions from the mosaic: The Stellar mosaic is simple, and in this case nothing complicated is required. One of the disadvantages is that the base is too flimsy - thin plastic, the quality of plastic bottles. On the other hand, after 4 years of operation, the base remained in perfect condition. An important mosaic parameter for kids is the ease of pairing the parts with the base. This mosaic has 5+ ease of joining parts, in fact, just like the next one.
Our model contains 80 parts and this is too much for children 1-2 years old. From my experience now, I would stop at 50 details.
This mosaic has a very attractive price-quality ratio. Nowadays you can find many of these. But at the moment, much more interesting options have appeared on sale - With templates, including democratic ones from Stellar. I provide links to them below -.
Quercetti mosaics for kids
Impression: In my opinion, this is the best mosaic for one-year-old babies! Towers made of cubes a year turn out to be unstable and always fall. Ordinary mosaics do not provide space, because laying out patterns is not yet accessible in terms of development. The Quercetti mosaic developers took all this into account and created the ideal mosaic for the 1+ age category. This mosaic is essentially a hybrid of a constructor and a mosaic:
- due to the design of the parts, stable towers emerge from this mosaic;
- You can also lay out flowers and other designs in a plane.
Of course, with all the advantages, a high price tag was added to the mosaic. In addition, it is difficult to find :-(. From time to time it appears on ozone. The mosaic exists in several versions. There are smaller sets. They do not include a plastic container for the parts. In general, if you see it, grab it. In my opinion, it is relevant with 10 months to 2 years. At 2.5 years, Lego Duplo will probably be more relevant.
It is important not to be disappointed in the purchase: Children develop real construction skills from the age of 3. After purchase, don’t expect your child to start diligently building towers. Don't wait until after your child has built their first tower for a construction boom. This often happens later. The construction boom does not come immediately after the construction of the first tower, but at the moment when the child has firmly grasped the principles of building towers. This can happen several months after your baby's first tower. If your baby has not started assembling towers from cubes and using other “developmental toys” for their intended purpose within one year, be patient and remember that by going through and examining the details of the “developmental toys”, the child is also developing.
When choosing this mosaic, I asked myself the question “which is better, similar mosaics or Lego Duplo?” In our experience, Lego Duplo was inaccessible to Yana until she was 2.5 years old—it was practically impossible for her to pair the parts together. Based on this, I consider such a mosaic to be a much more successful purchase for a child under 2.5 years old.
Mosaics with patterns - a toy that can hold children's interest
The two previous mosaics are very good, but they are not able to significantly hold a child’s attention. Mothers can offer various tasks with mosaic pieces, but after completing the task the child will lose interest again. This is how the child’s psyche works: he took a toy, looked at everything that interested him, tried all the actions available to him and that’s it... it’s time to move on to the next toy, item or object. Consequently, the younger the child, the faster he loses interest and needs a change in activity.
In children aged 1-2 years, due to their age, their imagination still does not work, and logic is only gaining momentum. Consequently, games with mosaics at this age are episodic and chaotic.
Four-year-old Yana has long outgrown this mosaic, but she gladly joined the game when I asked her to pose with a variety of mosaics. The kids' favorite mosaic is buttons with patterns. This mosaic provides even two-year-olds with an activity with results! This is a very important point. The child, finishing folding the next picture according to the template, feels pleasure that he was able to cope with the task. Games based on patterns have an end point and a feeling of satisfaction from the result. When a child is given an ordinary puzzle, a pile of blocks or a construction set for free play, the child begins to suspect that this activity is endless, and infinity is immense. When your activity has a finite nature, then more interest is shown in it.
By the way, an adult has similar properties of interest:
- Imagine if someone told you that you need to pick strawberries from a field that stretches to the horizon. If you collect them, you can eat as many berries from this field as you like. The moment you imagine or see this huge field, you will immediately get bored, lose interest and think: “Well, a whole field! I'd rather buy as much as I need. I’ll pay, but I won’t strain myself.”
- And if they show you a small garden bed and say: “You pick all the berries, and they are yours.” The attitude towards such a task will be completely different. There will be immediate interest.
When we give a child a large pile of construction set pieces, cubes or mosaics, his interest quickly subsides. To maintain interest, it is important that the toys offered contain dosed tasks. For example, fill one picture with chips by color. And if there are not a lot of these chips, and the number corresponds to ages 5-10, then the task is up to the child. Such mosaics are available to children from 2 years old. Moreover, at 3-4 years they continue to be interested even more than at two years. In middle preschoolers, attention becomes more concentrated and of higher quality:
- At 2 years old, when playing with such a sink, Yana got tired after 2-3 pictures;
- At the age of 3, mosaics with patterns engrossed her. She could put pictures together in patterns one after another, sometimes even all of them. Take a look at the video below. Yana is 4 years old there. I pulled the jigsaw puzzle out of the closet where the non-age-appropriate games are kept, but the patterns instantly caught her interest.
Mosaic options with templates for kids
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Specifications* (prices as of May 2018) *Prices in the table are shown as of May 2018 without discounts. Mosaics with Djeco templates (Italy) for middle preschoolersAs I wrote above, children really like to collect pictures using templates. In general, the average preschooler considers collecting according to templates a useless activity. By and large, I agree with this opinion, but still, sometimes we must give the child not only healthy, but also tasty food and an interesting game. And besides, a mosaic with patterns is an ideal option to balance the nervous state of an active child. Jigsaw puzzles can be suggested before bedtime or when the child is excited. I believe that toys are a must in the home arsenal, including for unloading and relaxation. In the process of preparing the review, I came across a couple of mosaics with templates for older children and threw the one with 230 pieces into the basket.
We are sure that children perceive putting together a mosaic as a real small miracle, when a whole image is obtained from individual pieces. And for us adults, introducing children to putting together mosaics is an opportunity to introduce them to another way of understanding the world.We will tell you in this post how to choose this wonderful toy correctly and what benefits playing with it brings at different children’s ages. Principle 1. STRENGTH AND QUALITY Making jigsaw puzzles is beneficial for children for several reasons. Firstly, it promotes the development of fine motor skills, creative thinking and imagination. Secondly, it helps a child over three years old to form purposeful action and volitional regulation of behavior, because laying out each pattern has a beginning and an end. And thirdly, this activity develops artistic taste. Mosaics, correctly selected by age, will be of interest to children for several years. Therefore, when purchasing, make sure that they are thoughtful and of quality: Mosaics for kids should contain large parts and be made from safe materials; for mosaics with legs, it is important that the pieces are easily stuck into the field and easily pulled out of it. The edges of each part should not be sharp, otherwise they may injure children's hands. Principle 2. THE ESSENCE OF MOSAIC IS IN MULTIPLE VARIATION: THIS IS NOT AN APPLIQUE OR A PUZZLE A mosaic always includes elements from which an infinitely large number of patterns can be composed. If the task of the game is to lay out a certain panel, then it is an applique, collage or puzzle. Applique and collage, meanwhile, are no less important types of children's creativity. It’s good when a child can do everything in turn, because it is in this case that the child’s psyche will develop the most diversified. At the same time, it is important for us, parents, to understand what exactly we present to our children. Principle 3. SPACE FOR CREATIVITY Mosaic should allow the creative imagination to unfold. The field should be large, from 10 cm on each side. There are enough chips. To pave this field. It is desirable if they were of different shapes and colors - this will allow you to create a variety of paintings.
Principle 4. POSSIBILITY TO FOLD A MOSAIC ACCORDING TO A PATTERN AND WITHOUT IT It would be good if the set included samples for images. This is especially true for children of senior preschool age 5-7 years old, when rules and patterns begin to play a special role in the child’s life. And the ability to act in accordance with a rule given by someone is the first step towards arbitrariness. It is quite difficult for younger children to assemble according to a model - but you can also play with three-year-olds in this way: ask them to lay it out according to the model, but its contact, but abstract. For example, just a flower. At the same time, it is important, if there are good examples, to allow children to show their creativity by posting their own designs. Principle 5. CORRECT SELECTION BY AGE Now there are a huge number of mosaics for a wide age range. And when choosing this toy, it is important to remember the rules of compliance.
These are mosaics with large pieces connected to each other by projections and, possibly, without a field. Children at this age will be able to post a whole picture, but they will be incredibly interested in studying the shapes and colors of the chips, as well as the principle of their connection.
Closer to the age of 3, children begin to be interested in constructing an image. They can be created using magnetic mosaics, in which the pieces are attached to the base with magnets, and simple mosaics on legs. Mosaics are suitable for this age, where the field is painted and there are holes for chips. This allows the baby, by matching them by color, to feel like a real creator!
At this age, when children begin to become interested in productive activities, playing with jigsaw puzzles is more important than ever. And it will allow you to realize creativity, train purposeful action and abstract thinking. After all, in order to create a drawing in bare dots, its image must be kept in your head for a long time. At this age, with the help of mosaics, you can create entire fairy-tale scenes and abstract patterns. Our assortment includes a beautiful one for this age from the French company Djeco. It has a fairly large and durable base made of thick plywood and chips on legs of different shapes that easily fit into the base.
There are definitely a lot of chips to cover all the panels with them, making drawings both according to instructions and without it. What is mosaic? Mosaic is a special type of creativity; it is a way of creating pictures, patterns, images using small pieces (details) of different colors. The pieces can be made from different materials (plastic, ceramics, pebbles, mollusk shells, etc.) and are chips of different geometric shapes, almost flat or on a “leg,” or three-dimensional figures. What are the benefits of mosaics? A child who knows how to correctly fold chips and makes the simplest patterns on his own does not seem to be doing anything unusual. But not everything is so simple! While arranging small parts of the mosaic, the child performs such different actions - from looking at the picture in the instructions to matching the parts by shape and color and laying them out on the surface - that playing with the mosaic, in the end, cannot be called a simple “killing time.” Making a mosaic is fundamentally different from drawing. If, with a pencil in hand, a child thinks almost at lightning speed, and an image on a canvas (a drawing of a house, a sun, a man, a flower in an album) is created spontaneously, then when working with a mosaic, creating an image requires maintaining attention for a longer period. The drawing itself may undergo some changes and ultimately be somewhat different than in the instructions. In general, of course, this is drawing, but drawing is dotted (that is, with chips point by point). When playing with mosaics, the baby’s development is stimulated: - setting a goal and striving to achieve it; In a word, when making a picture from the mosaic details, the baby is imagining. And this serves as a powerful tool in psychosomatic development. The role of puzzles in children's development. Puzzles are a multifunctional material for child development. ◊ Develop fine motor skills. The child takes the puzzle pieces with his fingers, rearranges them, sorts them out, and assembles them into a complete picture. This is the impact at the level of fine motor skills. Its development plays a huge role in the development of many child skills. ◊ Development of logical thinking. Before putting a part in one place or another, your child thinks about it. And the more opportunities a child’s brain is given to think like this, the better. ◊ Development of spatial and abstract thinking. This is one of the main characteristics of puzzles. They contribute to the fact that the baby learns to imagine an object, a picture in space, without seeing it before his eyes. In this way, the child develops fantasy when he is able to invent something or imagine something that is not currently in front of him. ◊ They teach to understand that everything in this world consists of parts, details. And if you put them together, correctly match one to the other, you get a real object. ◊ Develop the concept of more and less. That is, there are puzzles where there are few or many parts. A child's brain development depends on actions and manipulations in the world around him. Puzzle games for kids provide many key features. Children learn to work directly with their environment and change its shape and appearance when they work with puzzles. It should be noted that many of the puzzles are difficult and require repeated attempts in order to complete them. Puzzles can be put together in a group, this brings the participants together, it makes them think, solve problems, make decisions collectively! Children's mosaic is a toy with small elements, thanks to which you can create entire pictures. It’s not enough to call it just a toy, because in addition to entertainment purposes, it performs many more functions, in particular, it develops the child’s imagination, fine motor skills, perseverance, and patience. Also, thanks to children's mosaics, the child is instilled with the ability for purposeful activity and the ability to regulate his behavior. Mosaic helps in the development of aesthetic and artistic taste, awakens creative activity and helps to understand the world around us. Choosing a mosaicIn the past, there was only one standard type of mosaic, and we enjoyed assembling our pictures on a round stand. Today, the choice is so extensive that parents themselves are not averse to playing with such toys. Based on the age of the child, parents can choose the appropriate toy. A mosaic can be made up of completely different parts: beads, plastic chips, coins, blocks, wooden elements, pasta, magnetic blocks and so on. Before you buy, you need to know exactly how to choose a suitable mosaic according to age. Mosaic for children from 1 to 3 years oldFor a small child, mosaics must be selected especially carefully. Parts must be at least 4 centimeters in size. This way you will be sure that your child will not swallow any of them. Moreover, the one-year-old will not be able to assemble too small parts due to not yet fully developed fine motor skills. At the first stage there should be a few colors, preferably the four most basic, natural ones: green, blue, yellow and red.
The number of pieces in a mosaic set varies, but a set of 45-60 pieces is enough for a child under three years old. Moreover, the set has a canvas with cavities so that the child can place the parts themselves on it, which, in turn, do not have pins and are safe for the baby. Children's floor mosaics are best suited at this age. Mosaic for children from 3 to 6 years oldAt the age of three years, a child is able to master mosaics of any complexity, provided, of course, that he has previously had experience playing with simpler toys of this type. You can now safely choose a “mushroom” or puzzle-type mosaic. In the first case, the parts have a platform, and they are quite small in size, but children’s hands can already operate them without problems.
The area for collecting pictures can be quite small, but there are also options with a large area on which entire scenes can be composed. Puzzle-type mosaics will really appeal to older children, because they can be assembled on any surface, and you can do anything.
Children from four years old can be offered a magnetic mosaic. The set includes magnetic parts and a metallized board. Although you can even use a refrigerator instead of a board. Mosaic for schoolchildrenFor older children, the task must be complicated, because development should not stand still. Thus, children who are already familiar with numbers will find it interesting to assemble highly complex jigsaw puzzles.
In such a mosaic, each color of the parts corresponds to a number; on the insert, the drawing that can be assembled is not colored, as we are used to, but consists of numbers. The child’s task is to follow the numerical indicators and assemble a color picture. Toy qualityWhen deciding how to choose a good mosaic according to age, special attention should be paid not only to its degree of complexity, but also to quality, because the child has been in contact with it for quite a long time. The mosaic should not emit an unpleasant chemical odor. Each figure must be smooth, free from deformations and sharp burrs. Where to buy mosaicAnother very important question is where to buy mosaics? In fact, the selection of such toys in online stores is simply huge; you just have to choose the most suitable toy for your child. When purchasing this toy, you need to understand how it should be used and what it should develop. Mosaic contributes to the development of imagination, imaginative thinking, logical thinking, fantasy and creativity, holistic perception of the world, fine motor skills, concentration and perseverance. You can always select and buy mosaics for children on the website www.indigo-kid.ru. Varieties of mosaicsThe main varieties of this game include the following:
Age at which a child can be taughtIt is believed that mosaic is most effective for children from the age of three. However, now a large number of varieties of mosaics are offered for children from one year old. At an early age, parents and their children can put together only the simplest pictures. Older children are able to independently put together quite intricate patterns from different types of mosaics. It is important for parents to select a toy according to age and play with their child. Features of mosaics for children from one to two years old When choosing a mosaic for a baby aged one to two years, you need to pay attention to the following criteria:
Features of mosaics for children from three to five years old At this age, the fine motor skills of children's hands are already quite developed, so you can choose more complex toys. It is important to consider the following:
Thus, mosaic is essential for children's development. It not only helps improve fine motor skills of the fingers, but also stimulates brain activity and speech activity. The baby learns logical thinking, setting and solving specific problems. 
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