Puzzles! And Some Cool Facts for Nature Lovers

I saw a tongue-in-cheek cartoon recently about how things are often more appealing when we’re more ignorant and how our right to be happy may be trampled by our right for education 🙂 For some reason I got to thinking about that when I wrote the title for this post.

But this post will be about puzzles for kids :), the best kind of people to confuse, as they have answers for everything, no matter how hard it all is to puzzle together. Okay, so I couldn’t help myself.

Here come some of my designs. They offer butterflies, penguins, and marine life in ocean reefs for the young children developing an environmental conscience, a cute cat drawing and a whimsical landscape with lots of birds, and horses for lovers of these noble animals.

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Of all my jigsaw puzzles, I’m most proud of my butterflies collages and my elaborate collage of marine fish and animals in coral reefs, of which I could, in fact, fit only sections on some of the puzzles.

The photo collage on the above jigsaw puzzle includes images of the Old World swallowtail (Papilio machaon), yellow, black, blue, and red; the peacock butterfly (Aglais io), red with colorful round spots; the black-and-blue blue tiger butterfly (Tirumala limniace), the buckeye butterfly (genus Junonia), brown with colorful round spots; the fritillary butterfly, yellow with black spots; a black and white butterfly with black spots; and a largely blue butterfly.

The marine life photo collage above includes photos of organisms such as: nudibranch/sea slugs (order Nudibranchia), including Chromodoris nudibranch, parrotfish (family Scaridae), yellow tang fish (Zebrasoma flavescens), sea anemone (order Actiniaria), clownfish (order Perciformes), orange-lined and clown triggerfish (family Balistidae), lionfish/dragonfish/turkeyfish/butterfly cod (Pterois), miniatus grouper/coral grouper/coral hind (Cephalopholis miniata), jewelled blenny (Salarias fasciatus), sergeant major fish (Abudefduf saxatilis), copperband and lemon butterflyfish (family Chaetodontidae), sea turtles (order Testudines), seahorse (Hippocampus), octopus, crab (infraorder Brachyura), starfish/sea star (class Asteroidea), and many varieties of coral (class Anthozoa). A design for those who appreciate the beauty of coral reefs and their importance in helping survive a quarter of all oceanic organisms.

Please note that the collage image is crisper on the actual jigsaw.

And here’s a puzzle created with a photo of a reddish tan horse with a white strip on its face, a brown horse with a white star (white spot) on its forehead, and an artistic rendering of a horse, in an image that also includes a bit of grass and a cloudy sky.

Do you know why horses are said to be noble creatures? It’s because horses are both wise and generous. They give their riders all their strength it’s safe for them to give, being wise enough to let them know when they are too tired and need some rest. Also, for all their muscled grandeur, they are gentle giants, communicating in little understood ways with kids with autism, for instance, and with all of us, adjusting their rhythms to ours. The fact that they are emotionally sensitive can be gleaned, perhaps, in their case, from the fact that they startle easily, among other things. Horses also read very well out facial expressions and voice notes, and are confused when, in experiments, these don’t match. They are that smart and attuned to human emotions!

I’ve also made puzzles for preschoolers aged 4 or 5. Here’s an easy one, made of 56 pieces, for five-year-olds.

Now, if you really want to confuse a four-year-old, here’s an illustration of a meadow with flowers and a lake, two large trees and a house in the distance, and lots of birds.

And some penguins.

Here are some fun facts about penguins. Did you know, for instance, that their “tuxedo” look helps camouflage them as they swim in water, making them more difficult to spot by predators from above and below them? And have you ever wondered why they stick together in large waddles on land? Part of it is to keep warm! But did you know that they have an oil gland they can tap into so as to cover their feathers and better fight the cold, even as they do have a lot of blubber to help them with that? And where you aware that penguins can usually walk up to 1-2 km/a mile an hour, and even faster than humans if they are frightened? And that penguins sometimes swim dozens of km/miles a day to find their food (krill, fish, and other seafood)? And did you know that while they do have a streamlined body perfect for swimming, Emperor penguins, for instance, also come up for air every twenty minutes or so, shooting very fast out of the water?

Your children may also ask (if they haven’t already), are penguins mammals or birds? They are, of course, birds, even if they can’t fly. But they lay eggs and have a coat of feathers, as much as it may look, in fact, like fur.

But if your kid hasn’t discovered penguins yet, here’s a fun approximation of a cat, should they have one. Make sure you personalize the name.

I almost forgot to include a more difficult puzzle as well. Here’s a part of my photo collage or coral reef marine life for eleven-year-olds, in a jigsaw with 676 pieces.

Puzzles can offer great occasions for learning, but let’s not forget that they also carry us into a state of flow, where we’re riding a wave of full absorption that takes us to a happy place. For both reasons, jigsaw puzzles are great playthings.

I hope you enjoyed this presentation 🙂

To a happier, healthier life,

Mira

P.S. Pins and shares are much appreciated! Thank you! 🙂