Dinosaur

On July 30, 2019July 29, 2019 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles4 Comments

Educational kids puzzles make me happy, because a lot of the time I’m learning or re-learning things too! I assembled a bunch of kids puzzles one day to try to bump up the number of puzzles in my queue, and I had a very good time with them.

This double-sided puzzle came from a box containing ten puzzles (20 if you do each side separately) that mom and I found at the thrift store. Luckily each puzzle was bagged by itself so I’m almost certain that all of them will be complete. They’re a very nice quality set of puzzles, with thick pieces that fit together well.

Dinosaur 1 — Dinosaur (back) – Patch Products – 24 pieces

The T-Rex looks like he’s going in to make a meal of the Triceratops, but the Triceratops looks completely oblivious and happy. Too funny!

I don’t feel weird at all assembling these puzzles made for children. Firstly I donate all kids puzzles to a school for special needs kids where my daughter works, and I don’t want to send in any puzzles that are missing pieces. Second, I’m not one of those people who think assembling a small puzzle just isn’t challenging and therefore not worth my time – I’ve done some really difficult kids puzzles! Third, no matter the piece count, I absolutely love jigsaw puzzles.💗

Astronaut/Space

On March 27, 2019 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store Puzzles2 Comments

This is one puzzle from a box of 10 double-sided educational kids puzzles that are 24 pieces each. I was impressed with the quality of the pieces, and I really enjoyed the educational aspect of the puzzle too. I got 10 puzzles for $1.99 at the thrift store, quite a bargain!

Both sides had beautiful images, and all the puzzles were in excellent condition. Once I complete all 10 of them they’ll be on their way to the school my daughter works for so they can continue to be enjoyed. 🙂

Astronaut 1

The space puzzle had fun information, I love puzzles with a purpose! ❤

Ancient Egypt

On February 12, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

IMG_E4208_LI — Ancient Egypt – Sassi Science – 200 pieces

This giant of a puzzle almost took up our entire board! Another new company for us to try – Sassi Science Puzzles. They make wonderful quality educational puzzles about a variety of subjects. I’m always interested in educational puzzles, I find them fascinating (and there are usually lots of words to assemble 🙂 )

This puzzle was great fun, lots of colorful clothing and hieroglyphics to assemble at the bottom; the pyramid and Sphinx were a little challenging but very entertaining. The pieces were very thick and fit together well, definitely excellent quality. And the puzzle pieces were quite large and made an impressively sized finished product. In addition, there was a 32 page book inside with all sorts of interesting information on ancient Egypt.

This was a great thrift store find, and we were happy that all pieces were present and accounted for. It has been donated to the school my daughter works for and I hope they’re enjoying it as much as mom and I did. (We’re both gray-haired old ladies who are extremely young at heart and enjoy putting together puzzles for any age)

If you find any Sassi Science puzzles that you like I would definitely recommend them. They’re wonderful quality, and I love a puzzle that can teach you something too!

Britain & Ireland

On February 3, 2018 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw PuzzlesLeave a comment

This is the first kids puzzle I’ve purchased new; I don’t have an explanation why I wanted it so much, I just did. I love the idea of Mike Jupp’s artwork and humor added to a geography lesson in a high quality puzzle. I wasn’t disappointed!

This puzzle is a “Jig-Map” and has a “place name quiz”. There are 32 identically shaped pieces with the names of cities and towns in Britain and Ireland. Luckily you don’t have to know the geography to be able to complete the puzzle; the image behind each name will help you find it’s correct position. And as an added bonus it’s a lot of fun! Here are all the names…

The fun part was the different images by each name. The Beatles were next to Liverpool, there were sheep and a sweater in Cardigan, Robin Hood and Friar Tuck were in Nottingham, etc. What a great tool for teaching geography, it’s a lot of fun. 🙂

The quality was excellent with thick pieces, wonderfully crisp image reproduction, an excellent variety of shapes, and a very nice fit. I do love when a puzzle manufacturer puts effort into their children’s puzzles; kids need good quality puzzles that will stand up to being assembled many times and rougher than normal handling. Also, how cool is it that they got such a great image from such a great artist?

I looked up Jig-Maps, and they were a series of shaped geography puzzles that also had a place name quiz produced by Waddington’s in the 60’s. They were basically exactly the same as this Gibsons Jig Map, and a very cool idea in my opinion. I plan on donating this puzzle to my adopted grandson, I’m pretty sure he’ll love it as much as I did!

Endangered Sea Otter

On October 25, 2017 By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles, Thrift Store PuzzlesLeave a comment

I’ve come across several double-sided puzzles lately, and I find them very interesting to assemble. For this puzzle having 2 images to assemble was great, one was MUCH easier than the other. If you’re wanting a bit of a challenge you could assemble the sea otter picture; if you’re not in the mood for that, the image on the back is quite colorful and much easier. Mom and I assembled this one together, and we chose to assemble it with the back side up. 🙂

These puzzles are educational, I love that! On the front is the image of the endangered species, and the back shows information about where they are found in the world and how they became endangered. Very cool. There are six in the series: sea otter, koala, giant panda, asian elephant, hawksbill sea turtle, and the rain forest.

The pieces were thinner than a premium puzzle, but quite sturdy and fit together very well. The fit didn’t feel overly tight when you were assembling, but you could pick up the entire puzzle without any pieces coming out. This was very nice, because when we got down to just the pieces of the ocean we were able to flip it over and use the sea otter image to help us finish it more easily.

We enjoyed this puzzle very much and would be happy to find any of the others in the series to assemble. None of the pieces were missing, perhaps partly because they come in a large, resealable envelope with information about the puzzle series. Also very cool! You can tell these puzzles are older from the information on the envelope, no website! (also, it says 1991 🙂 )

They’re no longer being produced, but I’ve seen them on Amazon and eBay, and we got ours at the thrift store. If you find one, go for it! We had a good time assembling it. 👍