Last year, I created a copy of the chess cube puzzle for my classroom. Over the last few years, I have made quite a few puzzles for my classroom out of wooden cubes including the Gambler’s Die Puzzle, Instant Insanity, Three Immovable Pentablocks, SOMA blocks, and Genius Blocks. When I ran across another puzzle that …
3D Puzzles
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 …
As soon as I saw this twenty cubes puzzle, I knew it was the perfect puzzle to use in my classroom with linking cubes. The Twenty Cubes Puzzle asks students to arrange twenty cubes in four piles using five given clues: All piles contain an even number of cubes. There are twice as many cubes …
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 …
While researching the SOMA Cube a few years ago, I ran across this Gambler’s Die Puzzle that can be made from nine rectangular blocks of wood. These nine blocks can be arranged to make a regular gambler’s die (singular of dice). The dots must appear in the correct pattern on each face. To be a …
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 …
Today I’m sharing the Three Immovable Pentablocks Puzzle with you. This summer, I’m on a mission to make as many puzzles as possible for my classroom from a bag of 100 wooden cubes that I purchased from Amazon. So far, I have used 6 of these wooden cubes to make a set of Genius Blocks …
Today I’m excited to introduce you to SOMA Blocks. A week or so ago, I shared the first of many projects created from wooden cubes I have planned for this summer. Those Genius Blocks were actually my second project of the summer, but they were the first project to be entirely finished and ready to …
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. …
In February, Mary Bourassa wrote a blog post about Skyscraper Puzzles. As soon as I read the post, I knew I needed to use this puzzle in my classroom. I even sent my husband a link, gushing about how amazing these puzzles were! The puzzles from the brainbashers.com website weren’t quite the right size to …
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 …
I love using IQ Circle Puzzles in my classroom on the first day of school to teach my students about the importance of having a growth mindset. IQ Circle Puzzles are meant to be used as a party favor. My mom happened upon this entire box of these puzzles at a garage sale for a …