Just occasionally problem-solving can be staring-us-in-the-face-simple.

Our grandson was playing with a sort-shaping bucket and its geometric shapes just begging to be posted through a lid.

Me with my adult wisdom and experience? I was encouraging our boy to put the shapes through the right holes. And for even added value, I was naming the shapes as he touched them, saying the colours, and even helping him out by hovering the right shape over the right hole so that he could push it in. And when he did so, there was great delight – it did really amuse him.

Him? After a few attempts, our little angel paused, looked at the bucket, and worked out that if he simply took off the bucket lid, he didn’t have to mess about with all this ridiculous posting. There was a bucket and some shapes. The only problem he had to solve was how to get the shapes in the bucket – via whatever method did the trick.

Clever, eh?

It made me look at problem- solving in a whole new light.