Sliding puzzles

When Danichan was around two I bought him a set of jigsaw puzzles so we could do them together and enhance his neuronal synapses. But he showed absolutely no interest in solving them other than storing the pieces in batches at his favorite hiding spots ( inside his car trunk, under the sofa). Other than losing a few pieces and stepping on a random piece occasionally they haven't been put to much use. So, one day I had this great idea that I should get a set of sliding puzzles for him. My thought process was simple, he just needs to slide them to the correct spots and can't be making a mess even if he doesn't like them. And who knows, maybe that will get him hooked to jigsaw puzzles.

I had seen sliding puzzles only once in my life. At school, we used to have Secret Santa every year for Christmas. When I was in fourth grade, Drishya who was my Secret Santa forgot that it was the day of gift exchange. She was so flustered and embarrassed that she didn't have a gift for me, so  she gave part of her gift to me and also a sliding jigsaw puzzle that belonged to her. Honestly, I was so happy and excited for my gift and could have never asked for anything better.  It was a 4x3 sliding puzzle on a cream plastic board with a Jurassic park theme.We drove to our homestead  in Kottayam the same day after school and I remember the little me sitting on the backseat of our white ambassador car clinging on to it with so much excitement. I don't know if I ever solved it completely. I lost it in  a couple of days, I think I accidentally left it behind at Amma's home when we were staying there. Even months later, when we visited her home, I kept looking for it in the dark corners of my Ammachi's room and in the  little room up the cow's shed that was used storing hay. I lost hope and gave up eventually.

Now for Danichan I bought this set of 4x4 animal sliding puzzles.  I thought it would be simple easy to do these puzzles, just slide them into the right places you know!! So I eagerly picked up one of them, a baby blue elephant relaxing on a beach side. I  jumbled the pieces to solve before I teach him the technique. Surprisingly, it was not as easy as I thought!! So now I need to google and find how to do it before I coach Dani. As for Dani, he loves  randomly sliding the pieces and keeps asking " Amma, where is the piece in the empty slot?"