Are you ready to take on the Sixes Challenge? You must use exactly four sixes and your choice of arithmetical symbols to form the eight given target numbers. What is the Sixes Challenge? Using exactly four sixes, add arithmetical symbols between the sixes to make each of the target numbers. You may use plus, minus, …
Pencil & Paper Puzzles
This 3-1-4 Number Challenge is the perfect way to challenge your brain on Pi Day! How many different numbers can you come up with mathematical expressions for using only the digits 3, 1, and 4? Instructions Use the digits 3, 1, and 4 exactly one time each along with any mathematical symbol or operation of …
Sankaku puzzles are a geometric based logic puzzle that focuses on finding the area of a triangle. The goal of each puzzle is to connect three dots to form a triangle with the specified area. Sankaku puzzles are the creation of Naoki Inaba, a prolific Japanese puzzle creator. I first discovered these puzzles several years …
I love introducing my students to new puzzles over the course of the school year. I often pull out strimko puzzles (a logic puzzle that is often compared to sudoku puzzles) on days when I am missing a large portion of my students due to activities or events. Strimko puzzles are one of my favorite …
I am really intrigued by these square sudoku puzzles from Erich Friedman. Place 16 digits in each 4 x 4 array so that every row and column contains the same 4 digits in a different order. Each rectangular box should contain the digits of a perfect square when read across or down. Need help remembering …
Looking for a challenge? Check out this page of Make It Pythagorean Puzzles. Insert the same digit (in any manner of your choosing) to each side of the triangle to form a right triangle. I ran across these interesting puzzles in Golf on the Moon by Dick Hess (Dover Publications).
Today I want to share a new puzzle I’ve been playing with for the last few days: Naoki Inaba‘s Number Ball Puzzles. The other day, I set out to try to bring some semblance of order to my puzzles folder on my laptop. This is the place on my computer where I keep PDFs of …
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, …
The last time I taught Algebra 1, I used Step Puzzles by Naoki Inaba to introduce the idea of arithmetic sequences. I tweeted about it, but in the craziness of packing up my classroom and house to move last summer they never made it up on my blog. I was first introduced to the amazing …
Recently, I was scrolling through pictures I had taken on my phone, and I realized that I never got around to blogging about the Kazu Sagashi Puzzles I used with my students back in April. I was introduced to this logic puzzle in 2016 when I discovered the amazing puzzles of Naoki Inaba. Inaba is …
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 …
About a month ago, I was contacted by the Grabarchuk Family who are the creators of Strimko logic puzzles to see if I would be interested in reviewing one of their new puzzle books. Being the puzzle lover that I am, I had to say YES! So, full disclosure: I received the book mentioned in …
Back before spring break, I tried out two new-to-me logic puzzles with my students. I already blogged about the Slants puzzles from Brain Bashers. Today, I want to blog about the Tents puzzles from Brain Bashers. These Tents puzzles can be found here on the Brain Bashers website. I created a one-page introduction with the …
I found these interesting looking slants puzzles from brainbashers.com. I created a one-page introduction with the rules for these puzzles to give to my students. In the last few days before Spring Break, a large portion of my students were gone for various reasons. I decided it was not an ideal time to start a …
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 …
Recently, I posted about some awesome area and volume puzzles created by Naoki Inaba. You can read that post here. While researching those puzzles and looking for possible online sources for them, I found some on Mr. Inaba’s website. This led me to start wondering, “What kind of other puzzles has he created?” So, ever-curious …
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 …
I tried out some Masyu puzzles the other day with a group of students. These are a new-to-me puzzle that I learned about from Jeffrey Wanko. Usually, I’m drawn to logic puzzles involving numbers. (I’ve posted about KenKen, Futoshiki, Hashi, Shikaku, and Paint by Number puzzles before.) But, these have no numbers involved. Actually, there …
How do y’all feel about KenKen puzzles? Love them? Good. Me too. Today I want to post about a program that you may not be aware of. It’s called KenKen Classroom. The premise is simple. Visit the link. Give them your e-mail. Then, watch your inbox every Friday for free KenKen puzzles that are formatted …
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 …
One of the things I’ve most liked about introducing my students to new logic puzzles is that they’ve been new to me as well! I was initially hesitant to try the hashiwokakero puzzles with my students because they sounded scary. I learned about these puzzles from reading the slides from Jeffrey Wanko’s NCTM presentation. You …
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 heart logic puzzles. Give me a long road trip where I’m not the one driving, and I’ll probably be doing one of two things when I’m awake: reading or working logic puzzles. One of my favorite logic puzzles is one I learned about in high school. My high school calculus teacher would leave us …
I want to share the Digit Cells Puzzle I had my students tackle on my first ever day of being a teacher. Day 1 went pretty much as I had planned. I explained the concept of bell work to my students. I don’t think any of them have ever had a class before where they were …