Educational games with Nikitin Squares are a must-have in early childhood education. Somewhere between the ages of 2 and 7 years old.

Overall, the series of the Nikitin Squares has 3 levels of complexity, each representing a set of 12 squares. Every square is painted in its own colour and cut into pieces in a tricky way. The child’s task is simple: to assemble each whole square intuitively. The child chooses ‘pieces’ of the same colour and squares a square. The challenge, however, is here that the set always has 2 squares of the same colour.

The ideal start practising the squares game is 6 years old, Level 3. By the age of 7 the child should accomplish it speedily and independently. Proceed according to the principle ‘from elementary to complex’. Namely, first offer the child to build a square of 4 pieces, then move on to a more complex variant – a square divided into 5-6 fragments, etc. Finally, the most advanced child will be asked to create a square from 7 pieces.

What we here, at NeuroToys, specifically love about this format of the puzzle to make a square is the structured frame itself. The 12 squares of every level keep the child focused to accomplish the primary goal of the learning experience!

The learning benefits of the Nikitin Squares are amazing!

The method of early development of children, created by the Nikitins, allows to effectively accomplish the following goals:

1. Promote early mathematical and geometric skills.
2. Develop logic, creativity, spatial awareness and fine-motor skills.
3. Prepare a child for school.
4. Allow guardians to explain the basics in an unobtrusive, easy form, thanks to the structured simplicity of the educational material.
5. Teach the child independence.
6. Develop desire to solve problems while relying only on own intelligence

The author’s methodology is to nurture intellectual thinking already in the early years.

Who is Boris Nikitin?

Boris Nikitin invented many educational games for his children. These games have not lost their relevance or their demand for more than half a century. They are played in Russia, Japan, Germany and other countries. These games are still a hit in kindergartens, the practice of child neuropsychologists and psychologists, speech therapists, occupational therapists and, of course, at home.

How to play the Nikitin tablets with squares in the introductory stage?

1). During the first lessons, introduce 2-3 simpler squares, so to say, with bigger deconstructed parts of a square. Gradually add more squares into the game in order to intensify the difficulty.
2). Play the game against time and improve your record over and over again.
3). Play mosaic using all deconstructed parts and your imagination. For example, ask to: “Make a dog, a house, a bird, a giraffe, a spaceship…”. In other words, turn it into a tangram.
4) Use deconstructed parts as stencils. Trace them with an erasable pencil on paper, then colour the drawn objects.

How to set up the Nikitin tablets on a shelf in the learning space?

– Separate wooden puzzle fragments from the board/boards.
– Place them into a container next to the board(s).
– The board(s) should represent empty square frames, thereby inviting the child to fill them in.

Our NeuroToys’ collection offers you the following option from the Nikitin material:

There are 2 types of Nikitin boards for each level:

– maxi (1 wooden board: 12 squares)
– mini (2 wooden boards: each with 6 squares)

Additionally, there are also 3 types of difficulty levels:

– Difficulty Level 1 (3-years): from 0 to 3 fragments per square. However, IDEALLY age-wise, under strict supervision, as of the age of 2 years old.
– Difficulty Level 2 (4-5 years): from 3 to 5 fragments per square.
– And, difficulty Level 3 (6-7 years): from 4 to 7 fragments per square.

Side note: the collection of the wooden boards is multi-coloured. A random colour combination will be selected for you.

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Early start: 2 years (used as didactic material under strict supervision of adults)
Age: 3 years
Size: a square size (6 x 6 cm), 1 board (31.5 x 24 cm) or 2 boards (each 21 x 15 cm)
Material: eco-friendly birch plywood, non-toxic paints