Toddler Time: Busy Beetles Never Ending Puzzle

What a great teaching toy! The colorful and crazy Busy Beetles help children learn different things like math, colors, sorting, etc. While the package says the puzzle is for ages 6 and up, my 3 1/2 year old has had a great time sorting the colors and counting the pieces. He also loved helping me put them in colorful patterns... we also had a lot of fun simply connecting ALL the pieces together.

While this is great for kids, I plan to spill the Busy Beetles onto a large wooden tray and put it in the middle of the coffee table at our next gathering to entertain the adults as well.


Busy Beetles: Never-ending Puzzle
by DaMert Company
Ages: 6+ (I'd say 3+)
Toys / Games / Puzzles

Edition Reviewed: Used container I picked up for $1.99 at a local thrift shop!

About the Puzzle:

From the Container:

How Many Can You Connect?
* Link them into wild patterns or endless chains!
* Eight different puzzling shapes snap together!
* Try to connect just 10, then 20, then all of them!
* Includes 60 interlocking beetles!

From DaMert:

Busy Beetles™ is a unique form of tessellation, or tiling with mosaic patterns. How many can you connect? Kids learn about symmetry while having fun. For ages 6 & up, but challenging for all. 64 colorful pieces in a great storage jar.
Ages 6 & up.

About DaMert Company: (from their site)

The DaMert Company was founded in San Rafael, California in 1973 by Fred DaMert. After returning from Vietnam and as he was finishing his undergraduate degree in Humanities & Philosophy at San Francisco State University, he bought a prism at a local science museum and was captivated by the intensity of the colors it projected.

Knowing it would be enjoyed by many people, Fred set out to produce a large hand-crafted prism. Quite by accident DaMert bent a partially cured bar prism into a crescent shape and found that it projected an amazing curved spectrum. His first product, The Spectrarc Window Prism, was born.

After spending two years perfecting an esoteric production process and patenting the optic, he wandered into what was to be his first account. It was a small new shop on College Avenue in Berkeley, California called The Nature Company. The Spectrarc was an immediate best seller, and success quickly followed with sales to museum, specialty gift and toy stores and to prestigious national catalogs.

DaMert Company now has a collection of over 100 products and is a leader in the specialty market. Its innovative product development department and outside collaborations has earned it a reputation for providing unique, top quality products. DaMert Company works with many outside inventors and artists to provide creative partnerships for new product development.

One such partnership has been with internationally acclaimed nature artist Dan Gilbert. When he came to DaMert Company with a concept for a triangular matching puzzle it was a jewel in the rough. Product Development worked closely with Dan to refine the concept and the Triazzle was launched. DaMert Company and The Dan Gilbert Art Group continue to maintain a dynamic relationship enabling them to produce exciting, innovative products for adults and children of all ages.

DaMert Company's marketing and overall business strategy is based on creating excellence in its niche, being an innovative product leader, and providing affordable quality products that entertain, educate and endure. The company currently provides its collection to over 5,000 retailers nationwide and to distributors in 43 countries.