One of the yearly activities I look forward to at my school is our annual Pinwheels for Peace celebration. Pinwheels for Peace is a school-wide, cross-curricular project that occurs every September. At my school, the project is headed up by by my super-talented, award-winning art teacher neighbor, Shelley Self. September 21st is International Day of …
Desmos
I was super excited to discover a mathematical variation of tic-tac-toe. Instead of playing with Xs and Os, Numerical Tic Tac Toe is a game of evens vs odds. I printed the even and odd numbers on different colors of paper to make it super clear which numbers belong to each person. You might have …
Here’s a third hidden equation puzzle from Erich Friedman. Circle one symbol in each column so that a true equation results reading from left to right. I love to use these hidden equation puzzles with dry erase pockets in my classroom. If you don’t have a classroom set of dry erase pockets, you could also …
I’m super excited about using this ink stain matching activity as a first day of school activity for next year. It’s a great conversation starter, and I can see it being used in many different types of classrooms and subjects as a beginning of year team-building activity. If you are still in school and looking …
I ran across this X Marks the Spot Puzzle several years ago. The goal of the puzzle is to place Xs in the drawing so that a certain set of requirements is met. After typing up this puzzle with several other brainteasers, I promptly misplaced the computer file before ever using any of the puzzles …
I ran across this Pyramid Solitaire Puzzle in The Diagram Group’s Little Giant Encyclopedia of Puzzles. The goal is to pace the 16 markers in a pyramid pattern. Then, jump the markers horizontally and vertically so that a single marker remains in the center of the board. Each jump moves a marker over any adjacent …
In this Make Six Puzzle, you are given eight equations. You must insert mathematical symbols (no digits) to make each equation equal six. If you are wondering what mathematical symbols you are allowed to use, that is up to you!
I really like this order of operations activity that I am naming “Missing Parentheses.” I found it in the textbook Intermediate Algebra for College Students by Karl J. Smith and Patrick J. Boyle (free to borrow from the Internet Archive’s Online Lending Library). Yesterday, I shared a lovely set of 10 order of operations practice …
I am really liking these quadratic area puzzles from Chritsopher (Bow Tie Teacher on twitter) that are posted for free on TES. They are inspired by Naoki Inaba‘s Area Maze puzzles with a quadratic spin on things. For next year, I think I would like to do some sort of activity at the beginning of …
It’s been almost two years since I last shared a hidden equation puzzle with you. These hidden equation puzzles are the product of Erich Friedman, a math professor and prolific puzzle creator. You can read more about Hidden Equation Puzzle 1 here. I was introduced to these hidden equation puzzles through Puzzle Box, Volume 2. …
I am really excited about this shape grid puzzle from Erich Friedman. The goal of the puzzle is to divide the grid into geometric shapes. Any lines you draw must follow either the grid lines or the diagonals of the grid squares. Each shape that you draw must contain exactly one shape icon inside. This …
I’ve been a fan of this factoring puzzle for factoring quadratic trinomials since I worked through it at a Common Core workshop I attended (OGAP) in the summer of 2013. Over the last couple of days, I have been going back through these resources that I originally blogged about and giving each resource its own …
Hidato Puzzles have been one of my go-to puzzles in my file cabinet of puzzles for several years now. I have had great success with getting students interested in these puzzles who haven’t been interested in other logic puzzles like Sudoku or KenKen. Somehow, these puzzles have never made an appearance on my blog. Today, …
Can you solve the 145 Doors Puzzle to help a prisoner break out of a medieval dungeon with 145 doors? The 145 Doors Puzzle is one of my favorite puzzles from The Moscow Puzzles: 359 Mathematical Recreations by Boris A. Kordemsky. You can also find the 145 doors puzzle online at NCTM Illuminations. Here’s the text …
I’m back today with a fun, new puzzle called The Splice is Right Puzzle. This puzzle is from the book Test Your Math IQ by Steve Ryan. I was able to borrow the book for free from the Internet Archive’s online lending library. I highly recommend this site for checking out various books before you …
I’m super excited today to share a dotplot matching activity I recently created for my statistics class. This summer when I realized I was actually going to get to teach statistics again after a multi-year hiatus, I got super excited and started doing lots of research. One of the books that came across my path …
I’m back today with a new puzzle, Tic Tac Total. This puzzle, unlike the Pair Ups Puzzle I shared recently, can easily be applied to the distance learning classroom. It’s from the same excellent book Test Your Math IQ by Steve Ryan. I was able to borrow the book for free from the Internet Archive’s …
Today I want to share a connect the dots puzzle with you courtesy of Erich Friedman in Puzzle Box, Volume 2. If you love puzzles like this, you should definitely check out Erich’s Puzzle Palace which is chock-full of amazing puzzles. All three of the books in this series have been a lovely addition to my …
This lovely exponent task is from Mathematics for the College Boards by Rich Barnett (Copyright 1967 AMSCO). Because each problem in the matching task involves the variable m and the numbers 2 and 3, the task really gets to the bottom of whether students understand the role played by exponents and coefficients. This is the same …
Recently, I was scrolling through pictures I had taken on my phone, and I realized that I never got around to blogging about the Kazu Sagashi Puzzles I used with my students back in April. I was introduced to this logic puzzle in 2016 when I discovered the amazing puzzles of Naoki Inaba. Inaba is …
I’m here today to share with you the Twelve Envelopes Puzzle. I’ve finally reached a point in the summer where my brain has started thinking about ideas for the new school year. Actually, I’ve been thinking about next year since around February or March, but I’ve finally stopped *just* thinking about next year and started …
Day one and two are in the books! I’ll share a bit more about what I did with my classes on the first two days in a later post, but I want to go ahead and share the mathematical challenge I used with my students on the first day since I have got several questions …
This week, I’m trying out the Arrows Puzzle which is a different sort of puzzle on the puzzle table. Instead of being a puzzle where students have to arrange various laminated pieces like I frequently use, this is a coloring puzzle. To make things easier on students, I placed the puzzle inside an 11 x …
Yesterday, I added the four seasons puzzle to our puzzle table. We’re currently working on a Valentine’s project that involves creating a Valentine for each teacher/staff member (total of 26) who works in our building (a combined middle school/high school). So, the puzzle table has been doubling as an arts/crafts table. If you look closely …
Just a quick puzzle post today to share the north east south west puzzle with you because it’s already past my bedtime! This has been a crazy week because I’ve been spending almost all of my spare time prepping for a 2.5 hour workshop I’m giving this Saturday on interactive notebooks. The participants will actually …