Genius Blocks are my latest classroom creation. They are perfect for a classroom puzzle table or a creative way to practice mental math with integer operations. Last summer, I ran across several craft ideas on twitter involving wooden blocks. So I promptly went on Amazon and bought a bag of 100 one inch wooden cubes. …
Puzzles Related to Math Content
I’m here today to share a trig ratios puzzle with you. I’m currently using part of my summer to create some activities for my Pre-Calculus classes for this upcoming year. Last year, I felt like I definitely spent more of my time creating things for my Algebra 2 classes than my Pre-Calc classes. This was …
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 …
I want to convince you why dividing polynomials using the box method is my favorite method for dividing polynomials. After taking a 2 year hiatus from teaching Algebra 2 to dabble in teaching physical science and chemistry, I’m back at it this year. One of the things I really missed about teaching Algebra 2 was …
I’m really pushing the box method this year in my Algebra 2 classes, so Christie Bradshaw’s area model puzzles were a perfect introduction to the box method before we jumped into factoring using the box method!
This equilateral triangle puzzle comes from Puzzle Box, Volume 1 from Dover Publications. This is the first book in a series of three puzzle books that are edited by the Peter and Serhiy Grabarchuk. This specific puzzle is by Richard Candy. Each volume has 300 puzzles, and I have found over a hundred puzzles between …
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 …
Yesterday, I shared about all the amazing things I learned/experienced as part of the Tulsa Math Teachers’ Circle Summer Immersion Workshop. As part of that post, I mentioned that I had created some factor tree puzzles after being inspired by the puzzles shared by Dr. Harold Reiter and the puzzle created by one of the …
I’m very excited about the Square the Shapes Puzzle (this week’s puzzle table selection) because it’s got some hidden mathematics involved in solving it that aren’t obvious at first glance. I find that my students are less likely to tackle the puzzle on the puzzle table when the math connection is blatantly obvious. This week’s …
This school week was super-short due to the Oklahoma Teacher Walk-Out, but I still managed to put out a new puzzle on the puzzle table. The goal of the hidden equation puzzle is to circle one symbol from each column so that a true mathematical statement results. I placed the puzzle in a dry erase …
Today I would like to introduce you to the Ducks and Snakes Puzzle from Erich Friedman. Yesterday marked the first Monday of the second semester. This meant it was time to put out a new puzzle on the puzzle table. I have a table in my classroom where I set out a different puzzle each …
Last week, I came across a fun perfect square puzzle. Place a set of numbers in a row such that adjacent pairs of numbers always sum to a perfect square. I decided to create a version of the perfect square puzzle for my students to try who finished their 9 weeks test early. To keep …
The activity I’m about to share isn’t super fancy or complex, but my students absolutely loved it. I had planned two activities for our 50 minute class period in Algebra 1 on reviewing measures of central tendency: this activity and another. We did this activity first, and my students did not want to move on …
These Angle Maze Puzzles from Naoki Inaba challenge students to find a path through a maze by being able to recognize common angle measurements. Draw a path through the maze from S to G. Each time you pass through a numbered circle, the path must form that angle in degrees. This summer, I blogged about …
Zukei puzzles are the brilliant creation of Naoki Inaba. Inaba has posted these puzzles for free on his website, but it can be a bit hard to navigate since everything is written in Japanese. You may have heard of Inaba from his popular area maze puzzles. Instructions for Solving Zukei Puzzles The instructions for the …
I found this dragon puzzle to practice special right triangles online, and I fell in love with it. Each of the triangles is a special right triangle. I did a bit of research, and I was able to find the original source. I also found the same problem in McDougal Littell’s Geometry: An Integrated …
I found a scientific notation square puzzle activity (also known as a tarsia puzzle) online. I printed these out on different colors of paper and laminated them. The different colors of paper strategy is a trick I learned this summer at the OCTM conference. One of the speakers said that she prints activities …
Build It is a cooperative, team building activity that encourages students to work together, communicate, and think logically as they construct a geometric object to satisfy a set of given clues. If you’re looking to work on vocabulary, this activity introduces/reinforces words such as “face” and “edge.” I learned about Build It from Stanford’s website. The …
Area Maze Puzzles from prolific Japanese puzzle creator Naoki Inaba have become quite popular in the United States. This hasn’t always been the case. I first learned about these puzzles from a tweet from Lisa Bejarano. At the time of her tweet, you could only really get your hands on a large number of area …
After making my Function (or Not) Puzzle to give students practice classifying relations as a function or not a function, I was eager to make a similar open middle style activity to practice a different skill. I settled on creating an evaluating functions activity that would give students practice evaluating functions and hopefully help them …
I created this function vs not a function puzzle to help my students practice determining if a relation is a function or not a function. I also wanted my activity to perform double duty. I wanted students to be able to use the exact same activity to form relations that were functions and that were …
One of the things I love most about the #MTBoS is that for every idea I blog, I seem to get three or more ideas back in return. Recently, Christine Mishra left a comment on an old post from 2013 with a link to a (new-to-me) logic puzzle: Futoshiki. Christine thinks these would be awesome …
What are Shikaku Puzzles? Shikaku Puzzles are a geometric-based logic puzzle from Japan. I was first introduced to them from a tweet from Bowen Kerins. The goal of a shikaku puzzle is to subdivide the grid into rectangles (and squares) so that the number in each rectangle refers to the area of that rectangle. Only …
I recently gave this four fours challenge activity during the last few weeks of the school year. We got off to a rough start, but it ended up being a super engaging and enjoyable math puzzle! My students took their end-of-instruction exam on April 13th. That was two weeks ago, and we still have three …