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25 Fun Geometry Puzzles

Looking for fun and engaging geometry puzzles? Here is a collection of 25 free printable geometric puzzles that I have used in the past with my high school math students. Most of these puzzles should be appropriate to use with individuals ranging in age from upper elementary school or middle school to adults.

fun geometry puzzles

My students’ favorite geometry puzzles have definitely been the puzzles with movable pieces which must be assembled to create various geometric shapes. The Equilateral Triangle Puzzle and the 1-4-5 Square Challenge have both been hits with students.

geometry puzzles

If you are specifically looking for geometry puzzles for adults, I recommend the printable geometric logic puzzles from Naoki Inaba such as Shikaku Puzzles, Angle Mazes, Area Mazes, Sankaku Puzzles, and Zukei Puzzles. These are available as printable PDFs for hours of puzzle solving!

If you want to have a group engage in some great geometric problem solving, I can’t recommend the Let’s Make Squares Activity enough!

Area Puzzles

Shikaku Puzzles

Shikaku Puzzles are a geometric-based logic puzzle from Japan. The goal of a shikaku puzzle is to subdivide the grid into rectangles (and squares) so that the number in each rectangle refers to the area of that rectangle.

Area Maze Puzzles from Naoki Inaba

area maze puzzles by naoki inaba

Area Maze Puzzles from prolific Japanese puzzle creator Naoki Inaba have become quite popular in the United States. Use your knowledge of area to find the missing information in each diagram.

Quadratic Area Puzzles

quadratic area puzzles

Solving these quadratic area puzzles (inspired by Naoki Inaba) will require lots of factoring practice!

Sankaku Puzzles

sankaku area of a triangle puzzle

Sankaku puzzles are a geometric based logic puzzle that focuses on finding the area of a triangle. The goal of each puzzle is to connect three dots to form a triangle with the specified area. Sankaku puzzles are the creation of Naoki Inaba, a prolific Japanese puzzle creator.

Angle Puzzles

Angle Mazes

angle maze puzzles by naoki inaba

These Angle Maze Puzzles from Naoki Inaba challenge students to find a path through a maze by being able to recognize common angle measurements. Draw a path through the maze from S to G. Each time you pass through a numbered circle, the path must form that angle in degrees.

Triangle Puzzles

Dragon Puzzle for Special Right Triangles

I found this dragon puzzle to practice special right triangles online, and I fell in love with it.  Each of the triangles is a special right triangle.

Sankaku Puzzles

sankaku area of a triangle puzzle

Sankaku puzzles are a geometric based logic puzzle that focuses on finding the area of a triangle. The goal of each puzzle is to connect three dots to form a triangle with the specified area. Sankaku puzzles are the creation of Naoki Inaba, a prolific Japanese puzzle creator.

Equilateral Triangle Puzzle

equilateral triangle puzzle

This equilateral triangle puzzle comes from Puzzle Box, Volume 1 from Dover Publications. I ended up attaching magnets to the back of each puzzle piece and hanging it on my dry erase board as my Puzzle of the Week.

Make it Pythagorean Puzzles

Looking for a challenge? Check out this page of Make It Pythagorean Puzzles. Insert the same digit (in any manner of your choosing) to each side of the triangle to form a right triangle.

Triangular Turkey Puzzle

triangular turkey puzzle

This triangular turkey puzzle is such a great conversation starter. How many different triangles can you find in this picture of a Thanksgiving turkey?

This fun Thanksgiving math puzzle is courtesy of the late, great Martin Gardner.

Tricky Triangles Puzzle

tricky triangles puzzle

This tricky triangles puzzle has been around for over a century. Can you arrange these eight sticks to form exactly four triangles and two squares? The original puzzle was meant to be solved with matchsticks, but I didn’t think it would be that smart to give matchsticks to my students…

Three of Five Triangle Puzzle

three of five triangle puzzle

Three of these five figures fit together to create a triangle. Which ones are they?

Parts of a Whole – An Equilateral Triangle Puzzle

The Parts of a Whole Puzzle gives students five shapes that must be arranged to form a triangle whose three sides are of equal length. In other words, form an equilateral triangle.

One Big Square Task

I used this One Big Square Task with my trigonometry students to review 45-45-90 special right triangles. I found this task in the Open Curriculum Task Database.  I loved listening to the conversations my students had as they struggled through this problem.  And, I mean “struggle” in the best possible way!

Square Puzzles

Let’s Make Squares Activity

Let’s Make Squares is a great team-building activity that was featured in Kagan’s Cooperative Learning Handbook. Students must work together to assemble their popsicle sticks to create various numbers of squares.

1-4-5 Square Challenge

1-4-5 square challenge hanging on dry erase board

The 1-4-5 Square Challenge is actually three challenges in one. Can you make a square using exactly 1 piece? What about exactly 4 pieces? Now, for the real challenge: can you make a square using exactly 5 pieces?

Square the Shapes Puzzle

square the shapes puzzle

I love this Square the Shapes Puzzle because it’s got some hidden mathematics involved in solving it that may not be obvious at first glance.

Squaring Off Puzzle

Arrange the four provided rectangles to create a perfect square. The pieces may be rotated, but they may not be overlapped.

Square in Square Puzzle

The Square in Square Puzzle is a creation of the brilliant Peter Grabarchuk. You are given sixteen rectangles. Among these rectangles, only two can be placed next to one another to form a perfect square.

8 Sticks Puzzle

eight sticks puzzle with drawing of eight sticks 

Can you arrange the eight sticks to form exactly three squares, all of the same size?

Quadrilateral Puzzles

Zukei Puzzles

zukei puzzles by naoki inaba

Zukei puzzles are the brilliant creation of Naoki Inaba.  Inaba has posted these puzzles for free on his website, but it can be a bit hard to navigate since everything is written in Japanese. Can you connect the dots on each grid to form the specified geometric shape?

Count the Quadrilaterals Puzzles

geometric background with text "count the quadrilaterals" 

I think these count the quadrilaterals puzzles from 100 Geometric Games by Pierre Berloquin could spark some great classroom conversation.

Shape Grid Puzzle

The goal of the shape grid puzzle is to divide the grid into geometric shapes. Any lines you draw must follow either the grid lines or the diagonals of the grid squares. Each shape that you draw must contain exactly one shape icon inside.

3D Geometry Puzzles

Build It Activity

students participating in build it activity with linking or snap cubes in high school math classroom 

Build It is a cooperative, team building activity that encourages students to work together, communicate, and think logically as they construct a geometric object to satisfy a set of given clues. If you’re looking to work on vocabulary, this activity introduces/reinforces words such as “face” and “edge.”

Miscellaneous Shape Puzzles

Pair Ups Puzzle

In this Pair Ups Puzzle, you are tasked with pairing up the six shapes to form three pieces of equal size and shape.

Fitting Shapes Puzzle

fitting shapes geometry puzzle

In this Fitting Shapes Puzzle from Ivan Moscovich: puzzles are challenged with the following question: Can you fit the six shapes into the board without overlap? It sounds easier than it is!

Congruent Shapes Puzzle

congruent shapes geometry puzzle

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.