The Loops Puzzle is a fun edge-matching puzzle which involves arranging the pieces to make a square containing closed loops. This puzzle is actually three different puzzles in one!
Magnetic Puzzles
Can you assemble the four pieces to create a 4×4 square with a checkered pattern?
In this winter holiday-themed word puzzle, you must carefully arrange the letter trio cards to spell a variety of Christmas related words. Can you solve this Christmas challenge from Erich Friedman? Puzzle Instructions Combine the letter trios to spell out some words associated with Christmas. Each trio of letters will be used exactly once. For …
How well do you know your math vocabulary? This Math Triples Puzzle will test your ability to piece together various three letter word fragments to create mathematical terms. Puzzle Instructions Combine the letter trios to spell out some words associated with mathematics. Each trio of letters will be used exactly once. Puzzle Inspiration This puzzle …
This Little Ones and Big Ones Puzzle was a huge hit with my students last semester. I appreciate the simplicity of this puzzle. Even though there are only four different puzzle pieces, this is actually four different puzzles in one! Select any of the four shapes (say, the rectangle). Try to fit your four pieces …
This printable heart tangram puzzle is perfect for engaging students on Valentine’s Day or any day of the year! The goal of this puzzle is to arrange the ten pieces to form a heart. When I saw a tweet from David Butler with a Valentine’s Day puzzle he created for his wife, I knew that …
This Rotated Square Puzzle challenges you to place the numbers 1 through 9 in the boxes of the rotated square so that the numbers in each horizontal row form a number which is a horizontal square. This puzzle is the creation of L.P. Mochalov, and I found it in his book of Totally Tough Brainteasers. …
I’ve been having a lot of fun recently posting these Make 30 Puzzles for my students to tackle on a daily basis. The goal of these Make 30 puzzles is to arrange the digits and any of the arithmetic operations to form an expression that evaluates to 30. For example, the digits 0, 2, and …
In this which side of the line letters puzzle, the challenge is to determine on which side of the line does the letter “r” go. I ran across this puzzle in The Big Book of Mind-Bending Puzzles by Terry Stickels and decided it would make a great puzzle to put up in my classroom. A …
In this which side of the line numbers puzzle, students must determine if the numbers 9 and 10 go above or below the line. I ran across this puzzle in The Big Book of Mind-Bending Puzzles by Terry Stickels and decided it would make a great puzzle to put up in my classroom. I typed …
When I ran across this Jigmaze Puzzle in a vintage issue of Games & Puzzles Magazine, I knew it was destined to be one of my Puzzles of the Week. I found the Jigmaze Puzzle in the May 1976 issue of Games & Puzzle Magazine. One of my hobbies is looking through old puzzle books …
The Number Strips Puzzle asks: Can you rearrange the order of the seven strips so that each row contains a correct mathematical statement? Note that the strips containing operators can be inverted if necessary. I found this number strips puzzle in Ivan Moscovich’s The Big Book of Brain Games. This book weighs several pounds and …
This In a Row Puzzle challenges students to arrange the digits 1 through 9 in such a way that four statements regarding the sum of various subsets of the row are true. The numbers 1 and 2 and all the digits between them add up to 9. The numbers 2 and 3 and all the …
I’m excited to get back to featuring a new puzzle of the week every week in my classroom this year. A new puzzle I have prepped for this year is called Three of Five. Three of these five figures fit together to create a triangle. Which ones are they? I ran across this puzzle in …
While reorganizing my filing cabinets just before the end of the school year, I ran across a double letters puzzle that I had printed and laminated but never used with students. This had to be remedied! I added magnets on the back of each piece so it could be easily posted on the dry erase …
This week, my students have been taking turns tackling this tricky H Puzzle. The goal of the puzzle is to arrange the six given pieces to form a symmetric letter H. The pieces may not overlap one another in the final configuration. If you like puzzles like this, I have previously shared the T Puzzle …
The T Puzzle features four pieces that must be combined to form a symmetric capital T. The pieces may not overlap one another in the final configuration. This is a deceivingly simple puzzle. After all, how hard could it be to arrange just four pieces to form a symmetric capital T? When Martin Gardner wrote …
My students have really been enjoying the sequence puzzles I have been posting lately, so I thought I would challenge them with the O, T, T, F, F, S, S, … sequence. This sequence puzzle asks: What is the next letter in the sequence? Like I did with the M Heart 8 Sequence, I put …
This M Puzzle is trickier than it may first appear. Arrange the four given pieces to form a symmetric letter M. The pieces may not overlap one another in the final configuration. One might wonder just how hard it would be to assemble four pieces to make the letter M. If this is you, you …
This week, my students are tackling a puzzle that asks “What Symbol Comes Next?” Often this is referred to as the M Heart 8 puzzle since the first three symbols are similar to those shapes. My first experience with this puzzle happened years ago when a blog reader asked for my school’s mailing address so …
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!
I want to share with you a Pair Ups Puzzle today. I recently ran across an excellent book of puzzles called Test Your Math IQ by Steve Ryan. It’s out of print, but I was able to borrow it through the Internet Archive’s free online library which is my favorite way to find and look …
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 …
The 3 Hares Puzzle is a classic brain teaser that will put your visual problem-solving skills to the test. Can you arrange the six pieces so that every hare has exactly two ears?
In my last post, I shared the Square Pi Puzzle and mentioned that I was updating some older puzzles that have been long-time favorites of my students. Today, I want to share another updated puzzle, the 1-4-5 Square Challenge. I originally shared this puzzle on my blog in May 2015 which seems like an eternity …