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Four-year-old Nathaniel works diligently to fit vehicle-shaped pieces into a puzzle form board that makes matching noises when a piece is fully seated. Occasionally he orients a piece incorrectly and struggles to complete the fit. Nevertheless, one can take note of the number of clever strategies he uses to reduce his frustration or the difficulty of the puzzle.

On several occasions, when he gets stuck on one piece, Nathaniel unseats and reseats another piece previously placed. This "success" seems to restore his confidence and willingness to attack the troublesome piece.

After two successful completions of the puzzle, Nathaniel’s teacher rotates the form board 180 degrees. When Nathaniel places pieces in their usual location, they do not fit. He senses that something major is amuck. Instead of just trying the pieces elsewhere, he removes all of the pieces he placed askew on the form board and rotates it to its more usual orientation. It is easy to forget that knowing how to make a problem simpler is also a form of intelligence. This videative presents a number of these intelligent strategies.

Keywords: Fours, Puzzles, Child-Object, Spatial Relations, Matching, Special Education, videative

Length of videative: 8 text pages, 29 video subclips
Length of stand-alone master video clip: 7 minutes, 46 seconds