Square in Square Puzzle
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The Square in Square Puzzle is a creation of the brilliant Peter Grabarchuk. It is one of my weekly magnetic puzzles that never made it up on the blog this school year. Imagine that…
You are given sixteen rectangles. Among these rectangles, only two can be placed next to one another to form a perfect square with another perfect square depicted on it.
Can you find the two pieces? Or will you be tricked by the fourteen imposter pieces?
I added disc magnets to the back of each piece so that they could easily be stuck to and moved around on my magnetic dry erase board.
At the time I discovered this puzzle and typed it up for my classroom, it was available on Puzzles.com, one of my favorite online sources for puzzles.
That website has since been bought out by a jigsaw puzzle company and turned into a website that redirects you to Amazon to sell you jigsaw puzzles.
Thanks to Internet Archive, there is an archived version of the website I can point you to now. Want to browse the other free printable puzzles that used to be available, here’s an archived link to the general collection of puzzles that used to be available.
The only flaw I’ve found with using this square in square puzzle both with a group of teachers at a presentation I gave last summer and with the students in my own classroom is that people don’t read the instructions carefully enough.
I’ve had multiple people try and pair up ALL the pieces instead of finding only the two pieces that actually pair up to form a perfect square in a square.
Puzzle Solutions
Puzzle solutions are available on a password-protected solution page. I do not openly post the puzzle answer keys because one of my goals as a resource creator is to craft learning experiences for students that are non-google-able. I want teachers to be able to use these puzzles in their classrooms without the solutions being found easily on the Internet.
Please email me at sarah@mathequalslove.net for the password to the answer key database featuring all of my printable puzzles and math worksheets. I frequently have students emailing me for the answer key, so please specify in your email what school you teach at and what subjects you teach. If you do not provide these details, I will not be able to send you the password.
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, or as fun activities in their workplace. Just give me enough details so I know you are not a student looking for answers to the puzzle that was assigned as their homework!
This is awesome, my kids are loving it. Thanks for sharing!