Watching Birdie fiddle with our $3.99 wooden alphabet puzzle reminded me that I’d been wanting a better one. Ours is fine, except somehow the H, N, and Z are practically interchangable. Wha? She just loves to play with all of those letters and her language skills are exploding to the point where I know it’s time to reinforce which letter is which. But which puzzle?!
Let’s put it to a vote.
Which puzzle would you choose?
The minimal simplicity of Janod’s Wooden Alphabet puzzle from Land of Nod, $39.00 (above)?
Or the over-the-top kooky graphics of the Melissa and Doug Puzzle, $19.99
Vote in the comments – the puzzle with the most votes will find it’s way into our home!
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
While *I* love love love the minimalness of the first one, I have to say we have the Melissa and Doug one and it got far more attention than the puzzles that are just numbers or just letters. Also it’s vaguely more entertaining to talk about the walrus with the watermelon than just the letter W.
Oh now that’s a good point – I do spend a lot of time narrating our playtime … whether she likes that or not.
The first gets my vote for looks, but I must admit we actually own the rather garish Melissa & Doug version (I doesn’t seem quite so bad mixed will all the other crazy toys). My little ones loved it.
You know, I’ve seen the M & D puzzle in person and it didn’t seem as garish as it does on the site – probably due to the size reduction here.
definitely the janod one, the second puzzle is killing my eyes :)
i love janod, their quality is supergood and it looks just so pretty… what can we ask more for… a nice toy that could actually be displayed …
ha ha ha! something about the image of the M & D makes it seem worse than it actually is I think! But yes, the more I look at them the more clear it is that Janod is the right choice!
It’s also fun to see that my readers are totally on the same page as me in the end!
we own the melissa & doug puzzle and both boys LOVE(D) it! roe still plays with it on occasion. the illustrations are adorable. and even though i love the minimalist nature of the first one, i think the second is more kid-friendly, design-wise.
I vote for the Land of Nod puzzle, but only because I too am disappointed with our letter puzzle and have been trying to keep my eyes open for something better (maybe we have the same one – haha). I would like a letter puzzle where the puzzle pieces to take on the actual letter shape a little more than the one we have does. I have this one. http://www.target.com/Circo-Small-Classic-Puzzles-Assortment/dp/B001G50DGY
For instance, with our puzzle, the “N” looks more like a rectangle with an “N” painted on it. lol So I feel like the LON puzzle is a little more in line with the actual shapes of the letters than the M&D puzzle is, so that is why I would pick the LON puzzle. Does that even make sense? lol But, like I said, I’m a little weird in that way. ;-)
I agree – the puzzle letters have got to be accurate, otherwise it’s impossible to use it as a learning tool.