Elephant Pentominoes Puzzle

The animal-shaped pentominoes puzzles I have been putting out on a weekly basis have been a huge hit with my students. This elephant pentominoes puzzle was no exception!

Can you arrange a set of twelve pentominoes to form the shape of an elephant?

Previously, my students have tackled the Terrier Pentominoes Puzzle, the Penguin Pentominoes Puzzle, and a set of 13 different printable pentominoes challenges.

I ran across this elephant shaped pentominoes puzzle in Jon Millington’s Pentominoes: Puzzle shapes to make you think which was published by Tarquin in 1987. It was listed as part of a Pentazoo puzzle challenge.

I was able to check out a copy of this book virtually from the Internet Archive’s Free Online Lending Library. You will need to make a free account to access the book.

I printed three copies of the elephant pentominoes puzzle on 11 x 17 cardstock. Often Amazon will list packages of this cardstock as “used.” This usually just means that the outside packaging has been torn. I am often able to pick these packages up for 50% off as a result.

I printed this elephant puzzle on 11 x 17 paper since the plastic pentominoes I have in my classroom are made up of 1-inch squares. I wanted my students to be able to lay the pentominoes pieces directly over the elephant outline.

If you don’t have a class set of plastic pentominoes, I do have a printable version of 1-inch pentominoes available to download and print. Please be aware that you MUST allow students to turn over the printed pentominoes pieces in order to solve the puzzle! This is less obvious than with the plastic pentominoes pieces.

I placed each set of pentominoes in a magnetic pocket below the puzzle on the dry erase board. I like this method of displaying the puzzles because students are able to easily grab the pocket of pentominoes and take them back to their desks.