Mixed Emotions Puzzle

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Post Contents hide

1 Free Download of Mixed Emotions Puzzle

2 Puzzle Solutions

3 More Puzzles with Movable Pieces

Today I’m sharing an emoji puzzle with you called the Mixed Emotions Puzzle.

I’m not sure what it is about this week’s puzzle table selection, but it’s been much more popular than the last few puzzles combined! Maybe it’s the bright yellow paper or emojis that catch the eyes of students… Whatever it is, I’m excited to see students gathered around the puzzle table!

The goal of the mixed emotions puzzle is to place four pieces onto the 5 x 5 grid so that no two facial expressions are repeated in any horizontal, vertical, or diagonal line. You can rotate pieces, but you may not overlap them or flip them over.

One thing I LOVE about this emoji puzzle is that at first there doesn’t seem to be that many different ways to arrange the four pieces on the grid until you start thinking about how many ways each piece can be rotated! This makes lots of combinations to check!

Several groups of students ended up solving this mixed emotions puzzle yesterday on the first day it was out!

This emoji puzzle is from one of my newer puzzle book purchases. Yes, I may have a slight addiction to purchasing puzzle books for my classroom. I may or may not have bought four more puzzle books a few weekends ago at a thrift store!

The Big, Big, Big Book of Brainteasers is an awesome puzzle collection that features 567 different puzzles from The Grabarchuk Family. I ordered a used copy from Amazon for $5.83 with free shipping, so that works out to just over 1 cent per puzzle. Super bargain!

Big, Big, Big Book of Brainteasers (Grabarchuk Family)

Not sure if the puzzles in this book are for you? You can look at quite a few of the puzzles in The Big, Big, Big Book of Brainteasers by clicking the “Surprise Me” button inside Amazon’s Look Inside Feature!

Free Download of Mixed Emotions Puzzle

Mixed Emotions Puzzle (PDF) (1532 downloads )

Mixed Emotions Puzzle (Editable Publisher File ZIP) (810 downloads )

Want even more puzzles? Check out my puzzles page.

Puzzle Solutions

I intentionally do not make answers to the printable math puzzles I share on my blog available online because I strive to provide learning experiences for my students that are non-google-able. I would like other teachers to be able to use these puzzles in their classrooms as well without the solutions being easily found on the Internet.

However, I do recognize that us teachers are busy people and sometimes need to quickly reference an answer key to see if a student has solved a puzzle correctly or to see if they have interpreted the instructions properly.

If you are a teacher who is using these puzzles in your classroom, please send me an email at sarah@mathequalslove.net with information about what you teach and where you teach. I will be happy to forward an answer key to you.

Not a teacher? Go ahead and send me an email as well. Just let me know what you are using the puzzles for. I am continually in awe of how many people are using these puzzles with scouting groups, with senior adults battling dementia, as fun activities in their workplace, or as a birthday party escape room.