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This school week was super-short due to the Oklahoma Teacher Walk-Out, but I still managed to put out a new puzzle on the puzzle table. The goal of the hidden equation puzzle is to circle one symbol from each column so that a true mathematical statement results.
I placed the puzzle in a dry erase pocket so that students could easily erase their solution after finding it so as not to give the solution away to future classes.
If you don’t have a classroom set of dry erase pockets, you could also use heavy duty sheet protectors. But, I highly recommend investing in a classroom set of the pockets since they are so much more durable.
This hidden equation puzzle was found in Puzzle Box, Volume 3 by Dover Publications. This specific puzzle was written by Erich Friedman.
If you haven’t check out this awesome series of puzzle books? What are you waiting for?!?
Free Download of Hidden Equation Puzzle
Hidden Equation 1 (PDF) (791 downloads)
Hidden Equation 1 (Editable Publisher File ZIP) (169 downloads)
Want even more puzzles? Check out the new puzzle tab at the top of my blog.
Puzzle Solutions
I intentionally do not share solutions to the puzzles I feature on my website because I strive to provide learning experiences for my students that are not 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.
ElevenBottles
Sunday 15th of April 2018
I'm a little confused here. I assumed the big dots were decimal points, but am now wondering if they are multiplication operators. Could you please enlighten me? Thanks
Sarah Carter (@mathequalslove)
Sunday 15th of April 2018
They are supposed to be multiplication dots. The original puzzle (as written in the book I got it from) had x's for multiplication, but I was afraid that my students would think of them as a variable since I teach Algebra 1.