Giveaway Blast #2 – Melissa & Doug Jumbo Numbers Wooden Chunky Puzzle (CLOSED)

My kids love puzzles. All three of them do, and have from a very young age. I always say that they must get it from my husband, because I just don’t have the patience for puzzles and really don’t enjoy doing them. The only ones that I can sit down and do with my kids (without gritting my teeth silently anyway) are the simple wooden and cardboard ones aimed at toddlers and little kids. I’ve had so much fun ‘doing’ those with the girls because it’s not all about fitting pieces together as it is the educational part of learning how shapes fit together and colors, letters, shapes or whatever theme the puzzle is about. We have a pretty good collection of wooden puzzles that my 3-year-old (and even her big sisters from time to time) still enjoys working on. Our latest addition is a ‘chunky’ puzzle from the well-known toy company, Melissa & Doug.

What it is:

Melissa & Doug’s chunky wooden puzzles are hand-crafted with bright colors and engaging pictures on every piece as well as the board they fit in. These innovative puzzles are really two toys in one, as they include thick, chunky wooden pieces that not only fit into the puzzle board but also stand up for kids to play with by themselves or for pretend play. Every piece also includes full color pictures under them on the board as well. The Jumbo Numbers Wooden Chunky Puzzle not only has matching number digits on the pieces as well as the board, they go up to 20 and each piece’s square contains that number of something for kids to count. For example, the ‘8’ square has eight turtles and the ‘18’ square has eighteen bumblebees. The puzzle is 1″ x 12″ x 16″ in size and is recommended for kids ages 3 and up.

Courtesy of Melissa & Doug and Shopatron, we received a Jumbo Numbers Wooden Chunky Puzzle to try out and review.

Here’s my our take on it:

The very first thing that captured my attention about this puzzle is the fact that it goes up to 20. Every other wooden number puzzle I’ve ever seen only goes to 10, and my 3-year-old can already count quite well to 10. But she (like many toddlers and preschoolers) skips numbers between 10 and 20, plus she doesn’t recognize them by sight yet. When she sees a ‘12’, she’ll call it a ‘1’, ‘2’, for example. This puzzle if nothing else, is an incredible teaching tool for young kids who are just learning to count. After 20, the numbering all pretty much repeats – but it’s those pesky ‘11’, ‘12’, etc. that are so hard to figure out and remember.

But beyond the educational value, this puzzle is an extremely fun toy as well. The brightly colored numbers stand out and contrast well with the background squares. And even if you end up losing pieces or are missing one or two temporarily (which ‘never’ happens in our house – nah… LOL), the fact that each number is reproduced underneath on the board means that you can still use the puzzle for counting and figuring out the numbers. I wondered if the squares would be almost too ‘busy’, especially once you get up into the higher numbers where they had to fit an increasing amount of pictures into a decreasing amount of space. But when we received the puzzle, I realized that whomever designed this puzzle at Melissa & Doug did a very good job of making everything fit, without even looking squished. It also helps that the coloring is consistent – for example the 13 birds or the 16 flowers are all the same color, so it’s much less distracting and you can tell they all go together.

So what did my daughter think of the puzzle? Well, she’s played with it almost constantly ever since. She loves puzzles to begin with and this one is definitely one of her absolute favorites. She plays with it in several different ways – she’ll ‘do’ the puzzle the traditional way and fit the pieces where they belong, or she’ll play just with the pieces themselves by either stacking them or lining them up. I also love when she has them ‘talk’ to each other – just way too cute. 

Another thing I’ve noticed about this puzzle is that my older daughters, while they don’t play with it by themselves, will almost always interact with their little sister while she’s playing with it. They love to show her the ‘right’ way to count by using the pieces, and to teach her how to say the numbers correctly. One of their favorite activities is to race to see who can fit the most pieces in the fastest – a game which usually ends with them all dissolving into fits of giggles.

I think my only complaint about this puzzle is the size. Obviously it has to be larger than a ‘standard’ puzzle in order to fit everything on it and still be readable. It just makes for some difficulty in storing the puzzle, because it doesn’t fit on the shelf where all the rest of our puzzles are kept. So it’s in my daughter’s closet for now, but I think I will look for a baggie or small bin to keep the numbers in, so we can store the puzzle board standing up where it’ll take up less room.

The bottom line:

The Jumbo Numbers Wooden Chunky Puzzle from Melissa & Doug is an attractive, well-crafted toy that’s not only fun and engaging, but educational as well. It’s a toy that can grow with your child and offers multiple variations of play either by themselves or with an older child or adult.

Where can you find it?:

Melissa & Doug puzzles and other products can be found in various retailers, as well as purchased directly from their website at http://www.melissaanddoug.com/shop.phtml. You can also order them from Amazon as well. The Jumbo Numbers Wooden Chunky Puzzle retails for $19.99.

Would you like to try it?:

I have a second Jumbo Numbers Wooden Chunky Puzzle from Melissa & Doug to give away to a lucky reader! If you’d like to share this fun and educational puzzle with a child in your life, here are the rules:

1. Enter by visiting the Melissa & Doug site and leaving a comment here to let me know which other chunky wooden puzzle looks like fun. Please don’t just say ‘choose me’, or your entry will be discarded.
2. The contest will run until Monday, July 6th at 11:59 pm EST. The winner will be selected through random drawing, contacted by e-mail, listed on this post and also submitted to PRIZEY.Fetch. US entries only, please.
3. Please leave a valid e-mail address or other way to contact you! If you don’t wish to leave your e-mail address, please make sure that you leave a unique name and check back with PRIZEYWinners to see if you won. If the winner hasn’t responded within 3 days, an alternate winner will be chosen by random drawing.
4. If you’d like extra entries, you can:

• Post the Giveaway Blast button on your site (code is in the sidebar) for the duration of the event week. Leave a comment here with your site’s URL where the button is posted.
• Subscribe to my RSS feed (click on the orange icon in the upper left of the screen) or subscribe via e-mail – leave me a separate comment to let me know.
• Mention this contest on your blog with a link back to this post, and leave a separate comment with the link to your post so I can find it.
• Either Twitter about, ‘Digg’ or ‘Kirtsy’ this post – leave me a separate comment with your username at whichever site(s) you chose (one extra entry per method).
• Take my survey! Leave a comment to let me know. Even if you’ve previously taken it, just leave the comment and you’ll get the extra entry.

So that’s a total of 8 comments/entries if you do all of the extra entry options.

Good luck! 

THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED – the random number generator has chosen comment #37 as the winner:

Congratulations to Denise (no blog) who said, “Love them all. If I had to choose one besides the numbers, I’d choose the alphabet. Love Melissa & Doug toys! Thanks!“! I will be e-mailing you shortly to work out the details.

This post courtesy of: Melissa & Doug and Shopatron. No payment or compensation, other than product samples as described above, was received for this post.