It took us nearly a week to finish, but we finally completed the USA History over Time puzzle Abby got for her birthday.

From the moment Timberdoodle offered to let me review this puzzle, I knew my daughter was going to love it. She is crazy about jigsaws and works them routinely. Several other family members, including myself, are puzzle enthusiasts, as well.

But, wow! Abby had never worked a puzzle like this before — nor had anybody else in our family.

Layer 1:

It was pretty late at night when we decided to tackle this one. Rather than get sucked into it and lose sleep, we used our Time Timer Plus (another great Timberdoodle find) and gave ourselves just 45 minutes to get started.

That was enough time to flip over all the puzzle pieces, do some preliminary sorting, and finish a portion of the border.

A couple of Abby’s brothers lent a hand. But once the timer went off, we all called it a night and went to bed.

Work resumed the following morning, and we made good headway until lunchtime.

Soon the grandkids showed up to help with the bottom layer of the puzzle, which is just a normal jigsaw.

It depicts the westward expansion of the United States. Each part of the country — Louisiana Purchase, Texas Annexation, Oregon County, etc. — is a different color, but the labels make it a little easier to piece together.

Even so, we didn’t finish that initial layer until the morning of the third day. That represents the first two dimensions of this “4-D” puzzle — length and width.

Layer 2

Next we added the height and time dimensions by fitting together the USA History over Time puzzle’s foam layer of the fifty states those territories eventually got carved into.

We finished that layer in short order. It was the easiest and most straight-forward layer in that it was comprised of the fifty states with which we are all familiar, as they are today.

Layer 3

Finally, we added 93 tiny plastic replicas of historical buildings and monuments. These include such structures as the Statue of Liberty, the Gateway Arch, Hoover Dam, and the Alamo.

These monuments are numbered in the order they were built or memorialized. Many of the little buildings look very similar, but a handy chart helps differentiate them.

The reference chart contains color thumbnails of each monument, along with other information, including the year each historical site was completed or designated.

Finished, at Last!

We took about 5 days in all to finish the entire puzzle. The process was very educational, as we were able to see the country grow before our very eyes.

My kids enjoyed this puzzle so much that we’ve already purchased another 4-D Cityscape puzzle by the same maker.

Kids and grandkids both give this USA History over Time Puzzle two huge thumbs up. Short of traveling coast to coast and seeing such sites in person, I cannot think of a more fun and engaging way to learn about our country’s natural geography, changing borders, historical buildings, and national monuments.

To give your children the same experience, order your copy of this USA History over Time puzzle today. It’s available from Timberdoodle as a stand-alone purchase or part of it’s 2021 6th grade curriculum kit.