Star Pentominoes Puzzle

This star pentominoes puzzle takes the classic rectangular pentominoes puzzle up a notch with adding a requirement that each pentomino must cover exactly one star.

I had my first experience with pentominoes puzzles in second grade. My teacher, Mrs. Green, loved pentominoes. One of the activities we worked on frequently in our free time was the standard rectangular pentominoes puzzle.

Mrs. Green had a binder full of solutions and anytime you solved the rectangular pentominoes puzzle, she would pull out her binder to see if we had discovered a new solution that she could add to her binder. If we did, it was a great honor, and we would get a piece of candy to celebrate.

Star Pentominoes Instructions

The classic pentominoes challenge is to use a standard set of 12 pentominoes to build a 5×12 rectangle.

This puzzle adds the condition that each pentomino must cover exactly one of the stars printed on the puzzle grid. This is harder than it might seem at first!

There are 1,010 ways to form a 5×12 rectangle with a set of pentominoes. There is only one solution to the star pentominoes puzzle!

Puzzle Source

I found this star pentominoes puzzle in Totally Tough Brainteasers by L.P. Mochalov. I’m really enjoying the puzzles by this puzzle author, and I have several more puzzles by Mochalov that I will be sharing soon that I have adapted for my classroom.

Recently, I shared the Three Squared Puzzle by the same author!

Printing and Preparing the Puzzle

11 x 17 Version

I printed the puzzle on 11 x 17 cardstock. I sized everything to fit pentominoes made of one-inch squares since that is the size of the plastic pentominoes I have in my classroom.

If you don’t have a class set of plastic pentominoes, I do have a printable version of 1-inch pentominoes available to download and print. Please be aware that you MUST allow students to turn over the printed pentominoes pieces in order to solve the puzzle! This is less obvious than with the plastic pentominoes pieces.

8.5 x 11 Version

If you do not have access to the ability to print on 11×17 sized paper, I have also uploaded a letter-sized version of this puzzle which also is sized for use with plastic pentominoes made up of 1-inch squares. Remember, I also offer a free downloadable set of pentominoes puzzle pieces.

The puzzle board will print on two letter-sized sheets of paper which you will have to trim and tape or glue the two pages of the puzzle together.

Puzzle Hints

The stars add a fun twist to the puzzle. I really enjoyed trying to figure out what piece I could use in the bottom left-hand corner of the puzzle that would only cover one star.

If your students are struggling to solve this puzzle, I have created some hint cards which could be given to students to give them the location of one of the twelve pentomino pieces.

Sometimes, a single piece is all students need to be able to logically solve the rest of the puzzle!

Using the Puzzle in Class

I’ve had this puzzle out for several weeks in my classroom, and several students have managed to solve it. One thing that I have really enjoyed about this puzzle is that students tend to work on it in pairs which leads to some awesome conversations to listen in on!

This puzzle definitely requires some serious logical thinking due to the requirement that each pentomino cover a single square.

If you are working with younger students or are just looking for puzzles which are easier to solve, I recommend checking out my post with free printable pentominoes puzzle challenges instead.