Don't Get Stung Puzzle

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1 Free Download of Don’t Get Stung Puzzle

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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 out! How is it that watching my students take a standardized test is at least twice as tiring as teaching a full day of math?!?

Since I don’t have the energy to do actual school stuff like grading papers this evening, I guess I will share the file for this week’s puzzle on the puzzle table. Like last week’s emoji-themed puzzle, this puzzle was published in The Big, Big, Big Book of Brainteasers by The Grabarchuk Family.

If you want to invest in just one puzzle book for your classroom, this is the perfect book to start with. It is jam-packed with 567 different puzzles! Want a sneak-peek at the puzzles featured in the book? Amazon’s Look Inside Feature lets you look at quite a few of the puzzles in The Big, Big, Big Book of Brainteasers for free.

This Don’t Get Stung puzzle was a bit more complicated than the puzzles I normally type up out of my collection of puzzle books. But, once I made a hexagon template, it wasn’t too tricky to make the pieces.

This is the first puzzle I have placed on the puzzle table that allows you to overlap pieces.

In fact, this puzzle requires the overlapping of pieces. See all those bees? The final solution to this puzzle will have all of the bees hidden. Additionally, no shape can be repeated in any row in any of the three directions.

The Don’t Get Stung puzzle has got a bunch of attention from my students. Some students who never spend time at the puzzle table were asking about how the puzzle worked.

I think this puzzle has a certain visual appeal to it that sucks students into the problem-solving process.

Check out this awesome collaboration from students. There was a whole group gathered around the table on Monday in my chemistry class.

Free Download of Don’t Get Stung Puzzle

Don’t Get Stung Puzzle Game Board 11 x 17 (PDF) (2117 downloads )

Don’t Get Stung Puzzle Pieces 8.5 x 11 (PDF) (2145 downloads )

Don’t Get Stung Puzzle (Editable Publisher File ZIP) (975 downloads )

The Don’t Get Stung puzzle board is designed to print on 11 x 17 cardstock. The puzzle pieces are designed to print on 8.5 x 11 paper.

If you would prefer to print everything on letter-sized paper, you can print all of the pages at 65% scale. Don’t forget to also print the puzzle pieces at 65% scale!

Printing Instructions for Don't Get Stung Puzzle

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.

More Shape Covering Puzzles

Anonymous

Thursday 21st of February 2019

same question as Erica about the 3 directions? my kiddos are trying so hard to solve this one...so far no one has. this is a real brain bender this one. its been great watching them working through the different combinations, trying to find the solution. some getting really frustrated but persisting in trying to find the answer

Erica J

Thursday 24th of May 2018

Can you clarify "the three directions"? Is it straight across, then slightly diagonal to the left, then slightly diagonal to the right? Does that mean some rows will have only a couple shapes in them?

Molly Cohen

Tuesday 22nd of May 2018

Do you have the answer to this problem??

Comments are closed.