Panda Squares Puzzle

Challenge your students with Panda Squares, a free printable spatial reasoning activity that builds problem-solving, perseverance, and critical thinking skills.

Origin of Panda Squares

My first introduction to the Panda Squares Puzzle was a 2017 tweet by Jenny Leake that led me to figure out what this intriguing looking puzzle was.

My online research led me to a now defunct blog post from David Butler (archived version has been linked) with Adelaide University in Australia.

This curiosity led me to do a google search. I was pleasantly surprised to find David Butler‘s blog at the top of the search results.

The Panda Squares Puzzle is actually a puzzle known as “Bits” in Ivan Moscovich’s Super Games. Butler was inspired by the puzzle, but he asked his daughter to help him rename the puzzle. She chose “Panda Squares” since the puzzle pieces are made up of black and white squares.

This new name did cause a bit of confusion with some of my students who did not actually read the puzzle’s instructions and simply assumed that the pieces would create the shape of a panda.

Puzzle Instructions

Panda Squares consists of 16 square tiles. Each square tile is made up of four small squares that are colored either black or white. These 16 squares cover all possible colorings of this set-up of 4 small squares if you consider different orientations to be unique.

Arrange all of the 16 tiles into a 4×4 square so that the colors match along the edges of tiles next to one another.

Prepping the Puzzle Pieces

David Butler originally offered a free pdf of the Panda Square puzzle pieces on his university’s website. Since the PDF has been since removed, I have uploaded David’s Panda Square pieces file at the bottom of this post in the files section.

I printed several different sized sets of panda squares to use in my classroom and laminated them. To achieve different sizes of squares, you can choose to print the PDF 1 to a page, 2 to a page, 4 to a page, 8 to a page, etc.

I used my largest set (1 to a page) for the puzzle table, but I printed smaller, individual puzzles for students to use by themselves later in the year.

Using This Puzzle in the Classroom

I put out a new puzzle each week for my kids to work on during their free time, and I decided this would make the perfect puzzle.

I didn’t want to have to keep explaining the rules of the puzzle, so I printed up the instructions and added a clipart panda for extra cuteness. I’ve added these instructions to the bottom of this post.

I did run into the problem of students misinterpreting the instructions a bit. They didn’t realize that they had to use ALL of the 16 pieces. Bailey Calloway tweeted about having the same issue.

So, to combat this misconception, I have reworded my instructions a bit for the future.

To spark student interest in the panda squares puzzle, I spread out the pieces across the puzzle table at the front of my room. It took a bit of time for students to get intrigued enough to try, but soon I would glance over during free minutes of class and see things like this: 

In his blog post about the panda squares puzzle, David Butler mentioned having students “notice and wonder” based on their various solutions to the puzzle. For my high school students, finding a single solution was enough of a challenge.

Over the course of the week that this puzzle was out, I only had one pair of students find a solution.   

When I took a picture of their solution, they insisted on being in it, too.

Many other students tried, but they would often get frustrated when the last piece didn’t fit in nicely. It made me sad to watch them scramble the puzzle pieces in frustration instead of persevering and trying to rearrange the puzzle pieces to make it work.

Now, it’s a new week with a new puzzle, and I’ve already had multiple students comment that they wanted another chance with the panda squares puzzle. Guys, this is the sign of a good puzzle!

This will probably be the first puzzle of the year to make a second appearance on our puzzle table!

Panda Square Variations

Panda Square Parades

I love this twist on Panda Squares from David Butler – a Panda Squares Parade.

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