The game of sim is an easy-to-learn pencil and paper game of drawing lines and avoiding triangles. Unlike many other similar pencil and paper games, there is always a winner!
End of Year Activities
Circle Tic Tac Toe is a fun twist on classic tic-tac-toe that is played on a circular grid. Having 3 different ways to win makes this game fun and engaging!
Tired of regular, old tic tac toe? Take things up a notch with this free printable PDF template for Ultimate Tic Tac Toe. Challenge your students, friends, or family with this strategic twist on the classic game.
Left Center Right was first published by George & Company LLC in 1992. It is an entirely luck-based dice game for groups of three or more players. I received a copy of the game several years ago for a gift, and I have been using it in my math classroom ever since then! I have …
Finish the year strong with this collection of end of year activities for math class. These fun end of year math activities will keep students’ brains active until the very last day. The activities included here can be used with students at almost any grade level including upper elementary school, middle school, and high school. …
The Impossible Domino Tower Puzzle asks, “Can you arrange 16 dominoes to build this seemingly impossible domino tower?” This domino puzzle might look familiar because I tackled a similar puzzle, the Impossible Domino Bridge, with my students back in September. My students loved the challenge of building with dominoes. So when I saw that Ivan …
I love introducing my students to new puzzles over the course of the school year. I often pull out strimko puzzles (a logic puzzle that is often compared to sudoku puzzles) on days when I am missing a large portion of my students due to activities or events. Strimko puzzles are one of my favorite …
The Impossible Domino Bridge Puzzle asks, “Can you arrange 15 dominoes to build this seemingly impossible domino bridge?” As soon as I saw this puzzle this summer, I knew I wanted to try it with my math students. I think this would make a great beginning of school year activity for practicing class norms or …
Several years ago, I heard about the Let’s Make Squares activity from an OKMath Newsletter sent out by Christine Koerner. She recommended Let’s Make Squares as a great activity for the first week of school. I had already decided that I was going to do the 2s to 9s Challenge as my first day of …
I created this classroom display to show off the different modular origami projects I have created over the years from sonobe units. Almost every year, I make origami sonobe hexahedrons and cubes with my students. Some students opt to create additional sonobe units to create larger units. Now that I have them hanging from the …
One of the end-of-year activities I did with my statistics students was to explore the four color theorem. One of my students had been begging for weeks for me to let them color. I don’t think this was what she had in mind… Of course, I didn’t tell them the name of the theorem. I …
I ran across the game of Wild Tic Tac Toe while researching Tic Tac Toe variants for my classroom. Wild Tic Tac Toe is the same as regular tic tac toe, except that on your turn you may place either an X or an O – your choice – in an empty cell. If this …
What happens when you combine tic tac toe with a dice game? I was excited to discover this Tic Tac Toe Dice game in the book Dice Games by John Belton and Joella Crambit (1976). I was so excited about it that I typed up a PDF version to use with my students before I …
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 …
A few weeks ago, I posted the Tic Tac Toe Challenge for my students to tackle. After students solved the puzzle, they often ended up using the grid on the board to play regular tic tac toe. The puzzle only uses X’s, so students would end up drawing in the O’s with a dry erase …
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 …
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!
Everyone knows how to play tic-tac-toe. But can you solve the tic tac toe challenge puzzle? This fun brain teaser is simple to explain, but it can be hard to solve!
Lonesome Llama is an excellent first day of school activity/first week of school activity to teach students how to effectively communicate in a group. The activity is from IMP (Interactive Mathematics Program) Groups of students are provided with a deck of cards. Each card features a different llama’s house. Students must work together to figure …
Several summers ago, I created a DIY Instant Insanity Puzzle as part of my summer quest to create as many puzzles as possible using a bag of 1 inch wooden cubes. That summer, I created and blogged about SOMA Block Challenges, Genius Blocks, and the Three Immovable Pentablocks Puzzle. I never got around to blogging …
Survival in the Desert is a cooperative groupwork task. I have used this task in the past as a first week of school activity. I learned about this activity from reading Kagan’s Cooperative Learning book. I’ve seen the same activity featured in other books as well since then. Today I want to share some free downloads I created …
Most likely, you’ve ran across some variation of the two buckets puzzle at some time in your life. You have two buckets. One bucket holds exactly five gallons. The other bucket holds exactly three gallons. How can you measure exactly four gallons of water into the five gallon bucket? Groupwork Norms for the Two Buckets …
This collection of 97 printable tangram puzzles will make it super-easy to implement tangram puzzles as a problem-solving activity in your classroom. What are Tangrams? Tangrams are a dissection puzzle which is believed to originate from imperial China. A set of tangrams consists of seven flat shapes which can be put together to form a …
Today I’m excited to share the 20 x 9 Challenge with you and your students. Last summer, I picked up a copy of Pierre Berloquin’s 100 Numerical Games at Goodwill for a couple of dollars. It’s turned out to be a good investment because it has served as inspiration for several fun classroom challenges. Want to …
For the past two years, the Train Game (20 Express by Blue Orange Games) has been my go-to 2nd day of school activity. I’ve mentioned it on my blog before, but I’ve never written an entire blog post explaining it fully. I’ve got so much I want to blog about and so little time to …