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This Halloween Symbols Puzzle challenges students to arrange four cards so that various numbers of symbols are visible on each card.
What is the Halloween Symbols Puzzle?
This is a fun Halloween-themed version of a classic playing card puzzle. For this Halloween puzzle, I replaced the classic hearts, spades, clubs, and diamonds with fun Halloween symbols including spiders, pumpkins, black cats, and bats.
I posted this puzzle in my classroom on the dry erase board with large versions of the cards. I put ceramic disc magnets on the back of each card so that students can manipulate the cards as they attempt to solve the three challenges.
Puzzle Instructions
This puzzle is actually three challenges in one.
Challenge 1: Arrange the cards so that exactly four symbols are visible on each card.
Challenge 2: Arrange the cards so that exactly three symbols are visible on each card.
Challenge 3: Arrange the cards so that the four cards display 1, 2, 3, and 4 symbols respectively. The specific order of the symbols isn’t important, only that there is one of each.
Original Puzzle Source
I ran across the playing card version of this puzzle in The Big, Big, Big Book of Brainteasers by the Grabarchuk Family. The original puzzle was posed by Professor Hoffman in 1893.
Printing and Prepping the Puzzle to Use in the Classroom
I laminated the instructions and cards to make them more durable and hopefully discourage students from trying to fold or cut the cards.
MATH = LOVE RECOMMENDS…
A laminator is a MUST-HAVE for me as a math teacher! I spent my first six years as a teacher at a school with a broken laminator, so I had to find a way to laminate things myself.
I’ve had several laminators over the years. I currently use a Scotch laminator at home and a Swingline laminator at school.
I highly recommend splurging a bit on the actual laminator and buying the cheapest laminating pouches you can find!
This puzzle can be solved without any cutting or folding!
If you don’t want to post all three challenges at once, I have also included individual posters for each challenge in the downloadable file at the end of this post.
Free Download of Halloween Symbols Puzzle
WARNING: Make sure you trim around the edges of the playing cards after printing them. If you do not trim the edges off of the printed pages, students will be unable to solve some of the challenges.
Halloween Symbols Puzzle (PDF) (2179 downloads )
Halloween Symbols Puzzle (Editable Publisher File ZIP) (825 downloads )
Looking at this post in a month that isn’t October? I suggest printing the 4 Cards Puzzle. It is the same puzzle but with traditional playing cards instead of Halloween symbols.
If Halloween is near, check out my other Halloween math activities! I especially recommend the Halloween Triples Word Puzzle.
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.
