Little pink houses

My sister didn't use to like jigsaw puzzles. In fact, when I showed her some really cute ones as we roamed a bookstore years ago, my excitement over the array of choices was met with a wan smile and no interest whatsoever. So when she received one as a birthday gift from a niece and showed much enthusiasm about it, I was baffled. It was a 200-piece kind and it featured a fascinating world map in cartoony drawings. She required help with it and everyone was only too willing to take part in the fun. We completed it eventually and were thoroughly pleased with ourselves, not least my sister. That was in 2018.

By the time the first lockdown in the summer of 2020 rolled in, my sister had acquired over a dozen jigsaw puzzle sets of varying sizes and degrees of difficulty and could work on most of them by herself. When several started getting worn-out from repeated use, I knew she needed a new challenge. When it was obvious that our usual weekend outings would be out of the question for a long time due to the COVID situation, new challenges, new games, new sources of fun and learning became more vital than ever. Then I came across 3-D puzzles.

  

What can I say? They’re so cute! And the ones I stumbled on happened to be amazingly budget-friendly. There was no reason not to snap up a few.
After working on a farmhouse, a garden villa, and several other nicely designed mini-structures with my sister, it is easy to see that they’re providing us with more than mere enjoyment.

It’s a great mental workout
Though my sister is accustomed to traditional flat jigsaw puzzles, she’s a beginner when it comes to the 3-D kind. The latter is starkly different, which is why the first couple of sets we worked on had her mostly watching as I pushed pieces in place or determined which part went where. Later on, because there were numbers to look for, colors and shapes to match with the numbers, and pieces  to pry out of the cardboard sheets, she got involved by doing those. This kept her alert and she visibly enjoyed herself. With succeeding puzzles she routinely studied the pictures on the sheets and deduced that this brown thing was the fence or that orange piece was part of the roof.

It provides opportunities to reinforce consideration for others
Have you tried doing a puzzle when half your brain seems to be asleep already? Well, when we were a bit past midway through a little house one evening and the instructions were practically swimming before my eyes, I pointed out to my sister that it was nearly 10pm and that we’d better call it a day. She was wide awake and raring to go on, but when I quietly told her I was tired due to a particularly long day, instead of insisting on getting her way she said, “O sige, pwede naman natin ituloy bukas eh (Okay, we can continue it tomorrow).” I suppose she understands that even when she’s so into the activity we’re doing together, she has to make adjustments when it’s called for, rather than stick to her preference.

It helps boost fine motor skills

Children with Down Syndrome usually have difficulty with fine motor skills (fine movements of hands, fingers, and wrists, such as grasping, fastening and unfastening buttons, turning knobs, using scissors, to name a few) due to low muscle tone and excessive joint flexibility. Even as she is in her 50s, my sister exerts more effort than most of us when performing some movements, which is why these puzzles are great. Prying a puzzle piece out of a cardboard sheet or holding a miniature wall to secure the roof onto it may seem ordinary to us, but to a person mastering fine motor skills, it’s not that easy. And there are lots for one’s fingers and hands to do when playing with these puzzles, from pressing each piece out of the sheet and clutching tiny shrubs and animals, to holding the “lawn” in place while the older playmate secures different parts of the “garden”. Also, some of the smaller pieces require a delicate grip when being manipulated, so the varying degrees of force can go into the many lessons that this toy can teach amid the fun.

It can reconnect grownups with the kid in them
One thing I had not anticipated was my own enjoyment of these little dollhouse-like structures. They are indeed something else – impressive variety of designs, charming windows and shutters, even the details that went into those pastel-hued flowers and the vines climbing up a trellis are just marvelous. It’s probably because tiny versions of everyday things are scaled down to suit children, and building a little home (so to speak) logically brings a person back to childhood days. It certainly happened to me, and not only in a good way.

We were fortunate to have gotten hold of good quality stuff here, save for one. It was to be our very own beach house, complete with a portion of the shore. Minutes into it, I couldn’t figure things out, mainly due to the microscopic numbers which were supposed to serve as our guide in constructing the whole thing. Not even my trusty magnifying glass could help me. Pretty soon, I was seething over whoever was responsible for the tiny numbers (some of which turned out to be mismatched). My sister was unperturbed, cheerful over the notion of having a nice beach house this time. Well, my juvenile tendencies came to the fore when I very nearly threw a tantrum on account of the faulty plaything; fortunately, it was easy to persuade my sister it was time for a break and that it would be nice to let our Ate join in the fun during her scheduled visit the following day.

The sense of accomplishment is exhilarating.
Putting each puzzle piece in place is quite a thrill, especially when you begin to see the makings of the whole structure. A picture is pretty, but a 3-dimensional representation of it is more exciting maybe because you get a sense that it’s real. Hence, as my sister and I advance more and more towards completion, the anticipation heightens as well. Sometimes I let her secure the final piece in place for a ceremonious congratulations at the end, and her smile says it all. The journey is indeed as important as the destination but in cases like this, reaching the end of the line obviously brings with it incomparable delight.