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 …
Desmos
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 …
Here are 25+ prompts that can be used for checking in with students during distance learning. If you are in the midst of distance learning, you might be interested in checking out some of the digital activities I have shared. I will be updating this list as I add digital versions to activities. Update 1/12/21: …
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 …