Dinosaur Jigsaw Puzzles

Which dinosaur puzzle should a 5-year-old start with?

Pick Baby Dinosaurs Hatching or Toy Dinosaurs on a Playroom Floor at 8 or 12 pieces. Both have small friendly shapes and plenty of color, and a child can point at an egg or a toy and say where it belongs. Sit beside them and name what is on each piece together.

The playroom picture is seen from above, so the edges of the play mat and the wooden blocks are the easy way in. With the hatching babies, go round the nest in a circle and keep the leaf edges apart from the smooth shells.

How many pieces for an 8-year-old?

Somewhere between 36 and 80 pieces. The big animals still cover several pieces each at that size, yet there is enough scenery around them to feel like a proper challenge. T. Rex on a Ridge is a good choice, because the ridge line and the silhouette make it obvious which way is up.

Have them build the head and back first, then the rocky foreground. The green valley and the haze beyond it come last.

A child who has been to a natural history museum may like Dinosaur Museum Hall more than any living scene. The long spine and tail of the skeleton lead right across the picture, and the rib cage is a tight patch of small curves that rewards a careful look.

Good for

• A very first puzzle: the toy dinosaurs on the playroom floor
• Kids who like eggs and babies: the hatching nest
• Fans of the big famous ones: the T. rex on its ridge and the triceratops among the ferns
• Older kids into bones and fossils: the museum hall skeleton and the footprints on the riverbank
• A long evening for an adult: the prehistoric jungle panorama or the diplodocus in the mist

Which parts of a dinosaur scene take longest?

Ferns, mist and waterfall spray. Prehistoric plants come in many close greens with similar fronds, fog wipes out edges and white spray has almost nothing to grab. Leave all three until the animals and rocks are finished and the gaps will tell you a lot.

In Diplodocus in the Mist the long necks rise at different distances, which makes them handy upright markers through the haze. On the ankylosaurus, follow the broken line of its armored back, then the dark side of the waterfall. The jungle panorama is easiest in zones, with the volcano and its smoke kept in a pile of their own. At 104 pieces most of these take about 20 minutes, while the panorama at 600 is a project for a whole afternoon.

For a wider mix of easy pictures, see the puzzles for kids, or browse the Animals category for creatures that are still around today.