When family members ask what my kids want for their birthdays or holidays, I always try to select items that will challenge them and provide them with skills that enrich their education and their lives. These things include puzzles, open-ended toys, building materials, music compositions, and art supplies. I treasure activities that enhance our free play in an educational way putting what we learn in school into a tangible application.

Think Fun engineered a puzzled called “Thinking Putty Puzzle” that is extremely unique. The player uses different color putty (there are six colors), stretching, rolling, and placing it on a plastic game board with grooves, adding bridges and blockers if needed, to solve 60 puzzles that increase in difficulty.

The 60 cards, or “Challenge Cards”, have puzzles to solve on them. The front side of these cards has a picture of where each color putty dots belong on the puzzle board grid and the reverse has the solved puzzle. The player forms little balls from each color putty and places each color dot where the card indicates. The goal then is to connect the dots that are the same color with the putty without crossing over any other colors. As the levels progress, bridges and blocks are introduced to increase the difficulty of the brain teaser. Everything is stored in a single container and separated with dividers. It takes up a small amount of space storage-wise and its contents are well organized.

I am pleased that I had several weeks to review this product because I went through a cycle of ups and downs in my appreciation for it. At first, I was so excited to try it out and thought it would be one of my children’s favorite “go-go” downtime activity. Then, I tried doing a few puzzles myself and I got impatient and frustrated. I am used to playing puzzles like this on my phone where I just swipe, the phone dings, and the next puzzle is loaded. With Thinking Putty Puzzle, I had to physically form these ropes of putty. They were not uniform. I made them too long or too short. One puzzle took much longer than I wanted it to. So, I put it away but encouraged my kids to try it out.

Later, my younger kids pulled this puzzle out. It was too advanced for them and they were prone to mixing the putty. Trying to separate the colors is impossible so we just got as much apart as we could and mixed the rest in. We ended up being successful and I decided that this game was off-limits to the littles and reserved for my older kids exclusively.

My oldest daughter, age 9, took to Thinking Putty Puzzle like a blob of putty to another blob of putty! She spent time studying the puzzle and physically forming and structuring the pieces she needed to form the putty paths along the grid. I could tell she felt so satisfied to complete each puzzle and flip the Challenge Card over to check her answer. I believe she has made it through 20 of the puzzles so far! She said that she liked how challenging this game was. Most puzzle games are too simple, but even the beginner levels of Thinking Putty Puzzle were challenging for her.

With her interest and commitment to each puzzle, it sparked in my other older children a curiosity to give Thinking Putty Puzzle ago. Each of them enjoyed taking on a puzzle here and a puzzle there. It was especially enjoyable for my more tactical learner as she loved forming the putty ropes and physically building her solutions, something you cannot do on a phone.

Think Fun has crafted something incredibly unique here when it comes to puzzle meets brain teaser. The age range is correct as my children under the age of 8 were unable to fully participate in puzzling with this game. Thinking Putty Puzzle is well worth the money. I am curious to explore more from this company as their products all seem to be high quality and very innovative. Think Fun will now be added to my gift list! Excellent product!

-Product review by Cassie Deputie, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, June 2020