Trending Resource: Free Halloween Math Activities & Puzzles
This reindeer logic puzzle is perfect for bringing a bit of Christmas cheer into your classroom. Students are given seven statements about Santa’s reindeer who have run a race. They must use logical reasoning to determine the order in which the reindeer finished the race.
Speaking/Presentations June 2023Engaging Activities for Practicing Any Math TopicOklahoma Council of Teachers of Mathematics Summer Conference, Collinsville High School June 2023Puzzles for Building Math SkillsCo-Presented with Shaun CarterOklahoma Council of Teachers of Mathematics Summer Conference, Collinsville High School April 2023Panda Squares Co-Presented with Shaun CarterTulsa Math Teachers’ Circle, University of Tulsa April 2023Engaging Students Through…
In this which side of the line letters puzzle, the challenge is to determine on which side of the line does the letter “r” go. I ran across this puzzle in The Big Book of Mind-Bending Puzzles by Terry Stickels and decided it would make a great puzzle to put up in my classroom. A…
This Zigzag Overlap Puzzle was a fun addition to my puzzle of the week collection! The challenge is to arrange the eight strips into the five-by-five grid so that you will see the continuous black band running diagonally across the board as shown. I found this zigzag overlap puzzle in Ivan Moscovich’s The Big Book…
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 don’t think I need to explain why I won’t be giving my students matchsticks to play with……
This star pentominoes puzzle takes the classic rectangular pentominoes puzzle up a notch with adding a requirement that each pentomino must cover exactly one star. I had my first experience with pentominoes puzzles in second grade. My teacher, Mrs. Green, loved pentominoes. One of the activities we worked on frequently in our free time was…
It’s November which means it’s finally time to pull out this Triangular Turkey puzzle for Thanksgiving. How many different triangles can you find in this picture of a Thanksgiving turkey? I ran across this triangular turkey puzzle in a Martin Gardner book (Perplexing Puzzles and Tantalizing Teasers) this summer, and I knew I had to…
Last week, I used this Three Squared Puzzle with my students as one of our puzzles of the week. I thought I should share it with everyone here on the blog as well! How does the Three Squared Puzzle work? You are given nine squares. Your task is to arrange the nine squares to assemble…
Happy Monday! Welcome to another volume of Monday Must Reads, my weekly-ish attempt at capturing the amazing ideas shared by (mostly) math teachers on twitter. I hope you find an idea or two to use in your own classroom or to share with a coworker. This week’s volume features not only inspiring math teaching ideas…
In this which side of the line numbers puzzle, students must determine if the numbers 9 and 10 go above or below the line. I ran across this puzzle in The Big Book of Mind-Bending Puzzles by Terry Stickels and decided it would make a great puzzle to put up in my classroom. I typed…
Check out this simple sums puzzle if you are looking for a fun opening activity or a brain break. Insert any of the following signs (add, subtract, multiply, divide, or parentheses) between any numbers on the left of the equations to make them correct. You may join numbers on the left together if you wish:…
I was an instant fan of this Sums Puzzle when I discovered it in Puzzle Box, Volume 2. Place the number cards 1-99 into the grid, once each. A cell can contain no numbers, one number, or two numbers. Two numbers in a cell form a 2-digit number in that cell. The numbers outside the…
As soon as I saw this twenty cubes puzzle, I knew it was the perfect puzzle to use in my classroom with linking cubes. The Twenty Cubes Puzzle asks students to arrange twenty cubes in four piles using five given clues: Linking cubes are one of my favorite math manipulatives; there are so many different…
When I ran across this Jigmaze Puzzle in a vintage issue of Games & Puzzles Magazine, I knew it was destined to be one of my Puzzles of the Week. I found the Jigmaze Puzzle in the May 1976 issue of Games & Puzzle Magazine. One of my hobbies is looking through old puzzle books…
I can’t believe it is already Monday again and time for the 91st volume of Monday Must Reads! If this is your first experience with Monday Must Reads, it’s my weekly-ish attempt at capturing the amazing ideas shared by (mostly) math teachers on twitter. I hope you find an idea or two to use in…
October is the perfect time to challenge students with this bat tangram puzzle! Tangrams are one of my favorite puzzles to use in the math classroom. I have previously shared free printable collection of tangram puzzles to create a tangram binder for your own classroom. I highly recommend investing in a class set of tangrams….
The Number Strips Puzzle asks: Can you rearrange the order of the seven strips so that each row contains a correct mathematical statement? Note that the strips containing operators can be inverted if necessary. I found this number strips puzzle in Ivan Moscovich’s The Big Book of Brain Games. This book weighs several pounds and…
I ran across this Pips Puzzle in The Little Giant Encyclopedia of Puzzles by The Diagram Group. The goal is to arrange the ace to nine of hearts so that the pips in each row – horizontal, vertical and diagonal – add up to 15. This puzzle is really just a magic square, but I…
In the Triangle Sums Puzzle, you are challenged to arrange the numbers 1 to 9 in the squares so that the sum of the numbers in each pair of squares is the same as the number in the triangle that touches both squares in the pair. You may only put one number in each square,…
Now that I’ve been back to school for about a month, I finally feel like I’m getting in the swing of things. My school is doing distance learning on Mondays this year. However, students are allowed to still come in person on Mondays for extra help or if they need to make up missing work/tests….
The Impossible Domino Bridge Puzzle asks, “Can you arrange 15 dominoes to build this seemingly impossible domino bridge?” As soon as I saw this puzzle this summer, I knew I wanted to try it with my math students. I think this would make a great beginning of school year activity for practicing class norms or…
We are currently learning to create and describe dot plots in my statistics classes. To help increase student buy-in, I decided to have my students design their own “dot” for our dot plots. I’m calling these “design your own dot plot magnets.” I created a simple template with circles for students to create their own…
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 and can be…
I’m hoping that this Color Rectangle Puzzle will delight many puzzle solvers for years to come. One of the very first puzzles I ever put out on my first ever puzzle table back in 2017 was Donald Knuth’s Color Square Puzzle. This puzzle is very similar, but instead of forming a square you are forming…
This summer I typed up this Fitting Shapes Puzzle. Can you fit the six shapes into the board without overlap? I found this puzzle in The Big Book of Brain Games by Ivan Moscovich. This book seriously weighs several pounds, and it has 1000 puzzles in it. Several blog readers have shared with me that…
I recently received a request to share my Puzzle of the Week Poster. So, I thought I would turn it into a mini blog post in case anyone else was interested in setting up their own puzzle of the week station in their math classroom (or any classroom). Each week, I put up a different…
This In a Row Puzzle challenges students to arrange the digits 1 through 9 in such a way that four statements regarding the sum of various subsets of the row are true. The numbers 1 and 2 and all the digits between them add up to 9. The numbers 2 and 3 and all the…