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Whether you're looking for jumbo puzzles for toddlers or challenging puzzles for school age children, these U.S. stores have awesome jigsaw puzzles for your child. Puzzles help both the brain development and fine motor skills of your child. So when you buy a puzzle you have the satisfaction of knowing in addition to being fun, it's a toy that helps your child learn and develop. These are the best stores I recommend for children's puzzles.
Best for preschoolers - Melissa & Doug
If you have a preschooler who is just starting out on puzzles, you'll love Melissa & Doug. The company creates toys which are focused on early childhood development and makes lovely wooden preschool puzzles that are very durable. The Melissa & Doug site is easy to use and you can filter by approximate number of pieces.
All our early puzzles were Melissa & Doug, and I can attest to the high quality. Importantly, the puzzle comes in its own wooden board frame so it can be stored easily when completed. The kids loved these puzzles and did them over and over. Instead of having tons of different puzzles, Melissa & Doug created fewer numbers of excellent ones that are sure to be popular with your kids.
Carefully curated for all ages - Fat Brain Toys
If you're looking for kids puzzles for a range of ages, then Fat Brain Toys is your best bet. While they don't manufacture their own toys the way that Melissa & Doug do, Fat Brain Toys sells the best toys from multiple brands which they have carefully play-tested and curated. This way you know you're getting a high quality product. As their name suggests, they are big on learning and developmental toys.
You can shop by age or by number of puzzle pieces. I also noticed that Fat Brain Toys stocks puzzles that are hard to find elsewhere, such as giant floor puzzles for toddlers.
Best personalized puzzle for baby - Child Universe
Are you looking for baby's first puzzle? If so, I highly recommend Child Universe - they have personalized name puzzles with big chunky alphabet letters. The number of pieces in the puzzle = the number of letters in your child's name. You have a wide array of themes to choose from for the personalized puzzle, for example woodland, princess, or dinosaur, to name just a few. This is the perfect first puzzle.
Best for variety of pictures - Amazon
If your child has a niche thing that he or she likes (airplanes, for example) and you want to get a puzzle reflecting that interest, Amazon is the place to shop. You can search for [your child's interest e.g. airplanes] + "kids puzzle".
If you're just browsing without a clear idea of what your child would want, the huge range of different styles and pictures might require a bit more time to go through. By contrast, Melissa & Doug and Fat Brain Toys have less stock but it's been carefully curated to ensure you don't get duplicates or overly similar items in the list.
Nonetheless, Amazon is a solid choice for children's puzzles and you're able to filter broadly by number of pieces.
Best for filtering your options - Ravensburger
All of the stores listed on this page have filters for the number of pieces, but Ravensburger takes this even further. In addition to number of pieces, you can filter by age of child, by puzzle format (e.g. horizontal, square, vertical, round etc), by theme, or by licensed characters. This makes it a snap to find the kids puzzle you want.
Honorable mentions - helpful if you're shopping online there anyway
Walmart and Target both stock children's jigsaw puzzles and this is helpful if you're shopping online there for something else anyway - you can add in a jigsaw puzzle for your child to your order.
However, both of these stores don't do quite as good of a job as the previous ones on this list when it comes to puzzles, which is why I only recommend it if you're shopping there anyway. Walmart has kids puzzles in different styles, but their filters aren't quite as good as others. Target has a relatively small selection of puzzles but a good range of suitable ages. Not all of Target's children's puzzles have great reviews, so shop carefully there and watch the reviews.
To sum up, the best places for jigsaw puzzles for kids are Melissa & Doug, Fat Brain Toys, Child Universe, Amazon and Ravensburger. A puzzle is one of the best toys you can get for developing your child's brain and their fine motor skills.