Intermediate puzzles (without knobs)

[egoldber]

Sarah has always enjoyed puzzles. I found some basic puzzles without knobs at my local consignment store and she surprised me by doing them both very quickly! So I'm thinking we need more advanced puzzles.

But all the puzzles I have seen locally have been of the wooden knob style or else very advanced (50 states, 20+ pieces, etc). I'd like to find some like this, but I don't think Playskool makes these anymore:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3171838600&category=2615

Thoughts?

[muskiesusan]

Have you tried a school supply store? I have seen similar puzzles there, but you're right, I haven't seen them many other places.

HTH

Susan
Mom to Nicholas 10/01/01
& Baby #2 due 4/23/04!!!!

[brubeck]

Beth I've seen puzzles like that at Target and TRU recently. In fact I keep finding them because there is a Toy Story set and I'm always looking for Toy Story stuff for Amy. I know I've seen other designs as well.

What I found hard to find was the next level up (frame tray puzzles). I got Amy one last July and she took to it immediately (of course Elmo was on it). After not being anle to find any more I resorted to EBay and got her a bunch she tore through. She is now conquering the 24-30 piece puzzles that have no frame.

Good luck!

[egoldber]

OK, what's a frame tray puzzle?

And there seem to be a large number of the Playskool puzzles on eBay, so I may resort to that.

[brubeck]

Okay I found this one on EBay (hope the link works):

http://imagehost.vendio.com/bin/viewimage.x/00000000/sozoli/WigFrame2.jpg?allow_mailing_list=1&owner_id=159811&pt=bidpay&sp=1

It's really nice because there are not too many pieces, and underneath the 'frame' shows the outline of each piece. So it's the next step up from the puzzle you had in your message.

[egoldber]

Ah! Thanks!

(And what did we do before eBay???)

[myllam]

Hi Beth,

Not that similar to what you were looking for, but just another idea... We had purchased the construction version of these puzzles for DS (who is only a few days older than Sarah :) ) from TJ Maxx for $5 and he likes them. They had other prints, but DS loves trucks so it was an easy choice. There are 4 puzzles and each of them have 12 pieces.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00004R7YI/qid=1075362209/sr=1-67/ref=sr_1_67/103-8927154-2538247?v=glance&s=toys

It does seem to be difficult to find intermediate puzzles. We actually have the wooden alphabet and state puzzles (gifts) and though DS does not complete them, he seems to find them more interesting than his peg puzzles.

The tray puzzles look promising. I remember buying these for my nephew from one of the book fairs that my former company (ever see the 3Com buildings in santa clara :) ) sponsored every year around christmas. They came in a book format, so each page was a story and a puzzle. I'll have to see if I find any information on those and post it...

Monica

[muskiesusan]

Beth,

I was in K-Mart today for the first time in years and they actually had a pretty good selection of these types of puzzles.

HTH

Susan
Mom to Nicholas 10/01/01
& Baby #2 due 4/23/04!!!!