E Brainteaser Puzzle

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 discovered this delightful brainteaser.

In the E Brainteaser, students are given paper cut-outs of the letters C, E, and L. They are tasked with using all 3 letters (no overlapping allowed) to create a new letter E. 

This can be achieved without flipping any of the pieces over, so this will make a perfect magnetic puzzle to put up on my classroom’s dry erase board. 

The author of the book poses this as a way to have students practice the problem-solving strategy of “Change Your Perspective.” Because the book poses the question and immediately shares the solution (I guess it is a teacher’s guide…), I didn’t get a chance to attempt to solve this puzzle on my own.

I did give the puzzle to my husband to tackle to see how he would handle it. He tried many different configurations with little success. I ended up having to give him a hint. Once I did this, he immediately found the answer.