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Eight Lettered Squares Puzzle

I ran across the eight lettered squares puzzle, and I had to stop everything and try it out. Then, I had to make my husband stop everything and try it out with me. Math puzzles on a Saturday evening? Yes, we are THAT family!

eight lettered squares puzzle

The puzzle comes from The Little Giant Encyclopedia of Puzzles by The Diagram Group.

The puzzle that caught my eye was the 82nd (of 318) puzzles in the book. The premise is simple. Take a rectangular piece of paper including eight letters. Fold the paper so that the letters end up in alphabetical order, one on top of the other.  No cutting allowed!

I immediately opened up Publisher and got to typing up the eight lettered squares puzzle. This is what I came up with:

Eight Lettered Squares Puzzle

The husband and I cut out our rectangles and started folding.

Here was my thought process:

Hmmm…this is fun.

Nope. This is impossible. 

Wait. This is just like Manifold!

If I can do Manifold, I can do this.

Wait…what?

I can’t do this.

I think I can do this.

YES!

Meanwhile, the husband is still folding and folding and folding and folding. For once, I figured out a puzzle BEFORE Shaun. This is rare. He usually solves puzzles at least twice as fast as me. I think my years of fiddling with origami may have put me at a slight advantage when it came to solving this puzzle.

One thing I realized while solving the puzzle was that I needed to find a better solution for using it with students. The way I typed up the puzzle uses one page/student.

So, I decided to type up a version with multiple puzzles to one page to make it a bit more friendly on your copy budget!

Eight Lettered Squares Puzzle

My last period Pre-AP Algebra 2 class has become a bit obsessed with puzzles over the last few days. On Friday, I had a few students ask to stay AFTER SCHOOL (ON A FRIDAY) to work on the Color Square Puzzle.

Color Square Puzzle

I’m excited to let them tackle this new eight lettered squares puzzle!

Puzzle Solutions

Puzzle solutions are available on a password-protected solution page. I do not openly post the puzzle answer keys because one of my goals as a resource creator is to craft learning experiences for students that are non-google-able. I want teachers to be able to use these puzzles in their classrooms without the solutions being found easily on the Internet.

Please email me at sarah@mathequalslove.net for the password to the answer key database featuring all of my printable puzzles and math worksheets. I frequently have students emailing me for the answer key, so please specify in your email what school you teach at and what subjects you teach. If you do not provide these details, I will not be able to send you the password.

Not a teacher? Go ahead and send me an email as well. Just let me know what you are using the puzzles for. I am continually in awe of how many people are using these puzzles with scouting groups, with senior adults battling dementia, or as fun activities in their workplace. Just give me enough details so I know you are not a student looking for answers to the puzzle that was assigned as their homework!

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