2024 Puzzle

Celebrate the new year with a fun 2024 puzzle! Can you arrange the strips in the provided grid to form the digits in 2024? This puzzle is available in two levels and is sure to provide a fun challenge for students and adults alike!

After the 2023 Puzzle was downloaded over 5000 times (it was one of the most popular blog posts of 2023!), I knew that I had to make a 2024 version! Plus, some of you have already been asking for it!

2024 Puzzle Instructions

Arrange the strips in the provided grid to form the digits in 2024. The strips may be placed horizontally and/or vertically on the grid.

Last year, I didn’t specify that the strips could be placed horizontally and/or vertically, and I ended up with a lot of teachers emailing me saying that the puzzle was impossible. If your students are struggling to solve the puzzle, you might re-emphasize to them that the pieces can be placed horizontally and vertically on the puzzle grid.

I actually created two different versions of the grid this year. The first version includes a blank grid for students to build 2024 on top of. This is great for promoting spatial reasoning in students as the have to look at the 2024 grid at the top of the page and think about what they need to complete the grid for the puzzle.

If you are working with younger students or with students who need a bit more help, there is an additional version of the puzzle grid that has 2024 marked out on the grid in gray squares.

As you can see in the photo below, having the gray squares on the puzzle grid make it a bit easier to see where various puzzle pieces can even fit on the puzzle board.

Two Puzzle Versions

Like last year’s 2023 Puzzle, there are two different versions of this puzzle – basic and advanced.

Basic Version

The basic version of the puzzle has 11 strips that students must place on the puzzle grid to form the digits of 2024. The strips come in two different sizes. Most of the strips are 1×5 rectangles, but four for the strips are 2×5 rectangles.

Advanced Version

The advanced version of the puzzle has 15 strips that students must place on the puzzle grid to form the digits of 2024. In the advanced version, all of the strips are 1×5 rectangles.

Printing and Prepping the Puzzle

This puzzle is designed to fit on letter-sized paper, but you could also scale it slightly to print on A4 paper if you aren’t in North America.

I highly recommend printing both versions (basic and advanced) and trying them out before deciding which version would be the best to use with your students. Or, you could print both versions and let students choose which version to attempt.

I printed my puzzle pieces on colorful Astrobrights paper to make them “pop,” but you could just print them on regular copy paper as well.

Using the Puzzle in the Classroom

This would make a great welcome back activity for the first day back after holiday break to help celebrate the new year. I plan on posting it as my Puzzle of the Week during the first week back.

I only have two days with students when we go back after break, so I will have the 2024 Puzzle as my Puzzle of the Week for those two days. Then, for the first full week back, I will put out the 2024 Yearly Number Challenge as my puzzle of the week since we will probably need the entire week to work on it!

I have recently been posting my puzzle of the week in a Charles Leonard magnetic pocket that I picked up from Amazon. It hangs on my dry erase board, and it can hold a surprising amount of weight. I’m very impressed with them.