The present invention relates to the field of amusement devices and more specifically to children""s puzzles which function as both toys and educational teaching aids.
Children""s books function as both toys and educational teaching aids. The use of puzzles as toys and teaching aids is well known. Some children""s books in the past have had magnetic pieces or stickers that can be applied to the pages to complete a missing part of either a pictorial or verbal story. The process of supplying a missing part to such a puzzle-like device is educational for the preschool aged child and also assists in developing hand-eye coordination.
Because of the multitude of small pieces generally associated with children""s puzzles, pieces are often lost. Furthermore, because there is no way of retaining the pieces in a puzzle board, transportation of children""s puzzles is problematic because puzzle pieces are easily dislodged from the board and lost. Therefore, it would be desirable to have a puzzle book that is self-contained and easy to transport with a transparent window built into the front cover that would allow both parent and child to see the puzzle pieces contained within the book. Additionally, the puzzle pieces are sometimes difficult for pre-school aged children to handle and remove because of the lack of means for easily grasping the puzzle piece. Therefore a puzzle book of this type would have some type of handle on the puzzle pieces that could be easily grasped by a young child.
Also, in addition to puzzle-type books, other types of books frequently have objects accompanying them. These items also frequently become displaced or are not obvious to the purchaser. A method for retaining these objects within the front cover, and yet displaying them with the front cover closed would also be beneficial.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a book cover designed to retain objects and to display them to a consumer. A window extending outward from the cover would provide such a space for storage and display.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an easily transportable educational puzzle book. The puzzle book has one or more pages and the windowed cover. There are recessed cut outs in some of the pages within which the puzzle pieces would fit. The invention includes a front cover with a window that retains the puzzle pieces, which are placed within deep recesses on the first inner panel that immediately follows the front cover. This allows the front cover to be closed and the book to be transported with little risk of loss of the puzzle pieces.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an easy method for a preschool child to grasp and manipulate the puzzle pieces. Each puzzle piece may be equipped with a centrally protruding handle. The handle would allow a child to lift the puzzle pieces from their placements within a page recess.
It is another object of the present invention to allow a child, parent, or other consumer to see the puzzle pieces contained between the front cover and first page. The front cover is equipped with a window. In at least one embodiment of the present invention this window is transparent. This allows the puzzle pieces to be seen and also provides an interesting visual incentive for a preschool child to play with the book. A parent may easily see if all the puzzle pieces are present and accounted for.
It is another object of the present invention to be educational. The puzzle pieces in at least one embodiment have illustrations that match missing parts of certain illustrations on the inner panels of the puzzle book. For example, the puzzle pieces may illustrate methods of transportation. The matching recess on the inner panel would require completion with a means appropriate to transportation by ground, sea, or air. Some of the puzzle pieces may fit into and match more than one of the inner pages.