Looking for a fun challenge to complete with your tangrams? Check out this free printable bear tangram puzzle. Arrange a set of seven tangram puzzle pieces to create the shape of a bear. At the beginning of my teaching career, one of the first things I invested in was a class set of tangrams. I …
Puzzles with Movable Pieces
Looking for a fun challenge to complete with your tangrams? Check out this free printable camel tangram puzzle. Arrange a set of seven tangram puzzle pieces to create the shape of a camel. At the beginning of my teaching career, one of the first things I invested in was a class set of tangrams. I …
Spark your students’ problem-solving skills! Explore the Domino Effect puzzle: arrange 8 dominoes to create a balanced 4×4 square. I think you will enjoy this exciting classroom challenge! When I shared a photo of the Domino Effect Puzzle (this week’s magnetic puzzle of the week) on twitter, someone was quick to point out that I …
Engage students with the A Plus Puzzle! Free printable math activity where they assemble 5 pieces to form a plus sign. Fun and interactive for all!
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 …
I’m currently procrastinating on preparing a presentation I will be giving this next Wednesday at the Northeast Oklahoma Math Teachers Gathering by writing this post about the Square Pi Puzzle. Speaking of which, if you are anywhere near Northeast Oklahoma and are free on July 31st, consider yourself invited! It’s a completely free day of …
I’m excited to share with you the Big Magic Puzzle. I love magic square puzzles, but I’ve never done much more with them in my class then give out the occasional magic square puzzle worksheet. So, when I ran across a different-than-normal magic square puzzle in The Ultimate Clever Puzzle Book, I knew I had …
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 …
I recently ran across the E Brainteaser Puzzle. I immediately knew I *had* to create a version of this “E Puzzle” for my classroom. An excerpt of the book Quests and Quandaries: Exploring Intellectual Interests in Depth [link no longer exists] showed up in my google search results. It was through this excerpt that I …
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 …
I’m making the most of the $2 I spent on this recent Goodwill find. The Giant Book of Hard-to-Solve Mind Puzzles is out-of-print which makes used copies from Amazon VERY expensive. If you happen upon a copy of this book at a thrift store or used book shop, it’s definitely worth picking up a copy! …
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. …
Today I’m sharing a puzzle I’m calling Nine Squares Puzzle. A few days ago, Shelli tweeted about needing more puzzles for next year since her advisory students will have already seen the ones she has used previously. This reminded me that I too will have this problem because my Pre-Calc classes will be made almost …
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 …
Taking inspiration from Lisa Richardson, I decided to magnetize the puzzle pieces and place them on my dry erase board instead of laying them on a puzzle table like I have done in the past. Check out previous blog posts here and here. I’m super excited with the results of magnetizing these puzzles with disc …
Taking inspiration from Lisa Richardson, I decided to magnetize the puzzle pieces and place them on my dry erase board instead of laying them on a puzzle table like I have done in the past. I placed adhesive disc magnets on the back of each piece. Check out previous blog posts here and here. I’m …
Taking inspiration from Lisa Richardson, I decided to magnetize the puzzle pieces and place them on my dry erase board instead of laying them on a puzzle table like I have done in the past. I placed adhesive disc magnets on the back of each piece. Check out previous blog posts here and here. I’m …
Today, I’m sharing a Bookcase logic puzzle. I typed up this puzzle over a year ago and never got around to using/sharing last year because I could never remember to bring a piece of red cardstock to school with me to print out the pieces. This bookcase based logic puzzle is from The Big, Big, …
Yesterday, I posted a sneak peek photo on twitter of the matador dominoes puzzle I’ve been working on for my classroom. It was very interesting to read people’s theories about what the puzzle might entail. This is the Matador Dominoes Puzzle. I ran across this puzzle while searching the Internet for the instructions to a …
This isn’t the first time the Four Aces Puzzle has made an appearance on my blog. It was one of my very first puzzle table puzzles last year. I especially love this puzzle because it is a completely free download from Puzzles.ca. Earlier this year, the puzzle seemed to disappear from their site, but it …
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 …
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 …
Today I’m excited to share with you the Don’t Get Stung Puzzle. Most of today has been spent administering the ACT. Normally, I have lunch right after 3rd hour. Today, we tested straight through lunch. And, I didn’t get to sit down and eat my lunch until 6th hour. Needless to say, I am worn …
Engage your students with this tangram-inspired Egg of Columbus Puzzle! Discover a fun and challenging way to enhance problem-solving skills in your math classroom.