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In this Congruent Shapes Puzzle, students are given two colors of puzzle pieces. The task is to arrange the two colors of pieces to form two congruent shapes. You can rotate pieces and flip them over but not overlap them.
This Congruent Shapes Puzzle is the creation of the brilliant Erich Friedman and can be found in Puzzle Box, Volume 2, one of the books in my favorite series of puzzle books. It was this series of puzzle books that convinced me I should be using puzzles in my classroom.
In addition to publishing puzzles in books, Erich Friedman also has thousands of free puzzles on his website! If you love puzzles, I highly recommend taking a look around his Puzzle Palace!
I have featured several of Erich’s other puzzles before on the blog. Some of these include Arrows, Ducks and Snakes, 577 = 11111, and Plus Times Puzzles.
For this puzzle, you will need to print a set of instructions as well as the puzzle pieces on two separate colors of paper.
I printed the pieces on regular colored copy paper, laminated the pages, and then cut out the pieces.
I printed the puzzle pieces on regular colored paper before laminating them, but you could also print them on cardstock.
MATH = LOVE RECOMMENDS…
A laminator is a MUST-HAVE for me as a math teacher! I spent my first six years as a teacher at a school with a broken laminator, so I had to find a way to laminate things myself.
I’ve had several laminators over the years. I currently use a Scotch laminator at home and a Swingline laminator at school.
I highly recommend splurging a bit on the actual laminator and buying the cheapest laminating pouches you can find!
Free Download of Congruent Shapes Puzzle
Congruent Shapes Puzzle (PDF) (2055 downloads)
Congruent Shapes Puzzle (Editable Publisher File ZIP) (569 downloads)
Want even more puzzles? Check out my puzzles page!
Puzzle Solutions
I intentionally do not make answers to the printable math puzzles I share on my blog available online because I strive to provide learning experiences for my students that are non-google-able. I would like other teachers to be able to use these puzzles in their classrooms as well without the solutions being easily found on the Internet.
However, I do recognize that us teachers are busy people and sometimes need to quickly reference an answer key to see if a student has solved a puzzle correctly or to see if they have interpreted the instructions properly.
If you are a teacher who is using these puzzles in your classroom, please send me an email at sarah@mathequalslove.net with information about what you teach and where you teach. I will be happy to forward an answer key to you.
Kaitlyn Berten
Tuesday 1st of February 2022
Thanks for sharing!
Mark McDonagh
Thursday 16th of December 2021
Thank you for these. My students are so engaged and it's been great listening to them think about them.
Shannon Alvarez
Tuesday 9th of November 2021
I've been doing these puzzles every week since school started, but this one has us all stumped! It's been up over a week and nobody has figured it out!
Jessica Duthie
Friday 5th of November 2021
I laminated this puzzle and put a couple of them on my whiteboard. The students are obsessed with it and work on it when they're finished with their assignment. We are all dying to know the solution.
Jessica Ryan
Thursday 21st of October 2021
Thank you for sharing! My middle school kids love working with puzzles and brain teasers! Thank you!