Written by Cali @chasing50toes
My children absolutely love alphabet and numbers puzzles. We have found so many fun ways to play with them over the past 8 years but I also found myself constantly looking for a better set.
Every single puzzle I found had a ‘catch’ or something that bugged me! Some pieces were too small and were choking hazards. The wooden puzzles chipped (eliminating even one second of chewing) and were heavy—I still flinch thinking about the time my 2-year-old launched one across the table at her sister. Wooden puzzles were also hard to clean once they were (inevitably) covered in germs and stickiness. Many of the trays had phonics pictures that were too boring or educationally inaccurate (no, I don’t want to teach my little one U is for unicorn!). The plastic pieces were all…well, they were all cheap plastic! And nobody could ever get the colors right… my kids won’t play with the neutrals found on all of the Montessori brands and the bright primary colors were fun but a tad aggressive to leave around the house on display.
This laundry list of complaints led me to create our ABC and 123 Find & Fit puzzles! Enough with the negatives… here are FIVE unique and awesome ways to play with our silicone puzzle pieces that you can’t find anyplace else !!!
Have you seen the viral videos of frozen dino eggs? Where you freeze dinosaur figurines inside of water balloons and freeze them making ice dino eggs? Well, my kids love that one. So now, we make it with an alphabet or numbers twist!
Freeze your numbers, shapes, and alphabet pieces inside of water balloons or a large ice cube tray (this is much easier/quicker than the balloons) and then allow your kids to rescue the pieces by melting the ice with warm water or salt. Or for the impatient and aggressive kids (ahem, mine!) let them break them open (carefully) using a hammer or banging them on the sidewalk.
Painting with our Find & Fit puzzles is always a good time. You can stamp, roll and smear to get the artwork exactly as you please. This is great on a giant sheet of paper (viola, wrapping paper) or I even enjoy stamping with them on treat bags!
I’m going to let you in on a little secret. When we designed these puzzles, I didn’t think of stacking them. It never even crossed my mind as something to work into the design. Luckily, the custom font made by our awesome illustrator had just the right angles and edges, and the sizing required by our research and design safety team made them thick and sizable. When our first set of samples arrived (only the pieces came at first, no tray) I put them into the hands of my kids and the VERY FIRST thing they did was start building and stacking with them! It was amazing and exciting, and I wish I could say I had thought of it ahead of timer, but I didn’t! Now we all love a good STEM activity, so we build with the pieces and see just how high we can stack them. You’ll find that the letters stack better than the numbers—but my kids will tell you the challenge is way more fun with those wobbly, rounded number pieces.
We love water play and the Find & Fit puzzles are a perfect addition to the water table or water bin. We’ve tried just plain water, mixing them with ice cubes and pom poms, mystery water, playing with bubbles and making alphabet soup! With all of these activities, scooping and matching the pieces of the D&J Alphabet placemat makes it even more fun !
I’ve saved the best for last. Why are the Find & Fit puzzle pieces the absolute BEST puzzles on the market for messy play? Because you can toss them right in the dishwasher (Seriously—no one else makes puzzle pieces that are dishwasher safe!). We know you don’t have time to sit with a baby wipe and clean off your puzzles and if you’re like me, this hurdle means no messy play. But with the D&J Find & Fit puzzles, bring on the messy play then throw them into a bin of soapy water or throw them onto the top basket of your dishwasher!
Our puzzle pieces are perfect in sand, mud, water beads, paint, play dough, shaving cream, slime and even oobleck! Recently I left a few letters in our sandbox for a week and I hate to admit it was also not covered and it rained. I forgot about them completely, but my daughter dug them out, I tossed them on the silverware top tray of the dishwasher and they were as good as new!
So, there are a bunch of fun things you can do with your Find & Fit pieces you may not have known about. If you can’t tell, I’m quite thrilled with how these puzzles turned out and I am excited to share them with all of you!!! Do you have some other unique ideas in mind? We want to see your kids and students in action. Please tag us @dominoandjuliette on social so we can see your creativity!
