Erich Friedman is a prolific puzzle author. I first became acquainted with his work through the Puzzle Box Books. I’ve recreated several of his puzzles for my classroom: Arrows Puzzle, Ducks and Snakes Puzzle, Equation Rotation Puzzle, Connect the Dots, and Hidden Equation. Recently, I discovered his homepage that is chock-full of enough free puzzles to keep you busy for a …
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The last time I taught Algebra 1, I used Step Puzzles by Naoki Inaba to introduce the idea of arithmetic sequences. I tweeted about it, but in the craziness of packing up my classroom and house to move last summer they never made it up on my blog. I was first introduced to the amazing …
Recently, I was scrolling through pictures I had taken on my phone, and I realized that I never got around to blogging about the Kazu Sagashi Puzzles I used with my students back in April. I was introduced to this logic puzzle in 2016 when I discovered the amazing puzzles of Naoki Inaba. Inaba is …
I want to convince you why dividing polynomials using the box method is my favorite method for dividing polynomials. After taking a 2 year hiatus from teaching Algebra 2 to dabble in teaching physical science and chemistry, I’m back at it this year. One of the things I really missed about teaching Algebra 2 was …
I’m really pushing the box method this year in my Algebra 2 classes, so Christie Bradshaw’s area model puzzles were a perfect introduction to the box method before we jumped into factoring using the box method!
Yesterday, I shared about all the amazing things I learned/experienced as part of the Tulsa Math Teachers’ Circle Summer Immersion Workshop. As part of that post, I mentioned that I had created some factor tree puzzles after being inspired by the puzzles shared by Dr. Harold Reiter and the puzzle created by one of the …
Today I’m sharing some Triangular Numbers Posters with you. It’s January, and I’m still finding new things that need to go up on the walls of my classroom. It’s a bit of an obsession. Don’t believe me? Just take a look at my classroom! My Math Concepts class has been working on “That’s Logical” puzzles …
About a month ago, I was contacted by the Grabarchuk Family who are the creators of Strimko logic puzzles to see if I would be interested in reviewing one of their new puzzle books. Being the puzzle lover that I am, I had to say YES! So, full disclosure: I received the book mentioned in …
This Evaluating Functions Spider Puzzle was the perfect practice activity for my Algebra 1 students. These spider puzzles are the creation of Andy Lutwyche, and they are a free download on TES. Andy has created spider puzzles for many other topics as well that are well worth checking out! I use these spider puzzles inside …
My math concepts students are slowly improving their integer skills. To aid in this process, we’ve been tackling an Integer Squares Math puzzle from Developing Mathematical Fluency at the start of every class period.
The activity I’m about to share isn’t super fancy or complex, but my students absolutely loved it. I had planned two activities for our 50 minute class period in Algebra 1 on reviewing measures of central tendency: this activity and another. We did this activity first, and my students did not want to move on …
Back before spring break, I tried out two new-to-me logic puzzles with my students. I already blogged about the Slants puzzles from Brain Bashers. Today, I want to blog about the Tents puzzles from Brain Bashers. These Tents puzzles can be found here on the Brain Bashers website. I created a one-page introduction with the …
In February, Mary Bourassa wrote a blog post about Skyscraper Puzzles. As soon as I read the post, I knew I needed to use this puzzle in my classroom. I even sent my husband a link, gushing about how amazing these puzzles were! The puzzles from the brainbashers.com website weren’t quite the right size to …
I found these interesting looking slants puzzles from brainbashers.com. I created a one-page introduction with the rules for these puzzles to give to my students. In the last few days before Spring Break, a large portion of my students were gone for various reasons. I decided it was not an ideal time to start a …
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. You may have heard of Inaba from his popular area maze puzzles. Instructions for Solving Zukei Puzzles The instructions for the …
Recently, I posted about some awesome area and volume puzzles created by Naoki Inaba. You can read that post here. While researching those puzzles and looking for possible online sources for them, I found some on Mr. Inaba’s website. This led me to start wondering, “What kind of other puzzles has he created?” So, ever-curious …
Area Maze Puzzles from prolific Japanese puzzle creator Naoki Inaba have become quite popular in the United States. This hasn’t always been the case. I first learned about these puzzles from a tweet from Lisa Bejarano. At the time of her tweet, you could only really get your hands on a large number of area …
I tried out some Masyu puzzles the other day with a group of students. These are a new-to-me puzzle that I learned about from Jeffrey Wanko. Usually, I’m drawn to logic puzzles involving numbers. (I’ve posted about KenKen, Futoshiki, Hashi, Shikaku, and Paint by Number puzzles before.) But, these have no numbers involved. Actually, there …
One of the things I love most about the #MTBoS is that for every idea I blog, I seem to get three or more ideas back in return. Recently, Christine Mishra left a comment on an old post from 2013 with a link to a (new-to-me) logic puzzle: Futoshiki. Christine thinks these would be awesome …
One of the things I’ve most liked about introducing my students to new logic puzzles is that they’ve been new to me as well! I was initially hesitant to try the hashiwokakero puzzles with my students because they sounded scary. I learned about these puzzles from reading the slides from Jeffrey Wanko’s NCTM presentation. You …
What are Shikaku Puzzles? Shikaku Puzzles are a geometric-based logic puzzle from Japan. I was first introduced to them from a tweet from Bowen Kerins. 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. Only …
I heart logic puzzles. Give me a long road trip where I’m not the one driving, and I’ll probably be doing one of two things when I’m awake: reading or working logic puzzles. One of my favorite logic puzzles is one I learned about in high school. My high school calculus teacher would leave us …
I love using IQ Circle Puzzles in my classroom on the first day of school to teach my students about the importance of having a growth mindset. IQ Circle Puzzles are meant to be used as a party favor. My mom happened upon this entire box of these puzzles at a garage sale for a …
I love logic puzzles! I love puzzles that make me think, that challenge me. I want a puzzle that’s not impossible and not immediately solvable. It needs to be somewhere in the middle. The other day, I was looking for some puzzles to keep my statistics students busy. I had been administering standardized tests all …
The Loops Puzzle is a fun edge-matching puzzle which involves arranging the pieces to make a square containing closed loops. This puzzle is actually three different puzzles in one!