Penguin Pentominoes Puzzle

Can you arrange a set of twelve pentominoes to form the shape of a penguin?

I was super excited today to share a new penguin pentominoes puzzle with my students as this week’s puzzle of the week.

Several students attempted to solve this penguin puzzle over the course of the day, but so far none of my students have been successful. I guess this is a tricky one!

Puzzle Instructions

The goal of this pentominoes penguin puzzle is to construct the shape of a penguin using a standard set of twelve pentominoes.

The pentominoes may be flipped or rotated, but they are not allowed to overlap one another.

Puzzle Source

I ran across this penguin shaped pentominoes puzzle in Jon Millington’s Pentominoes: Puzzle shapes to make you think which was published by Tarquin in 1987. It was listed as part of a Pentazoo puzzle challenge.

There were several other animal outlines, but they were too large to fit on my 11 x 17 cardstock. I need to come up with a way to accommodate larger sized puzzles.

I was able to check out a copy of this book virtually from the Internet Archive’s Free Online Lending Library. You will need to make a free account to access the book.

I decided the penguin puzzle would make a perfect winter-themed pentominoes puzzle. My students were growing tired of the 13 Free Printable Pentominoes Puzzles I shared earlier, so it was time to try something new.

You might have noticed that I used the same Pentominoes Challenges Poster I created to hang above the puzzles since these are just a different sort of pentominoes challenge.

Using This Puzzle in the Classroom

I typically just post my puzzles of the week on the dry erase board and let students attempt to solve them on their own. I don’t direct their attention to the puzzles or require students to participate.

Some students love the puzzles. Others ignore them. I find that when one student in a class gets interested in a puzzle that their excitement is contagious.

I placed each set of pentominoes in a magnetic pocket below the puzzle on the dry erase board. I like this method of displaying the puzzles because students are able to easily grab the pocket of pentominoes and take them back to their desks.

Printing Instructions

11 x 17 Version

This pentominoes puzzle is designed to print on 11 x 17 inch paper. I print all of my pentominoes puzzles on 11 x 17 cardstock for extra durability, but regular 11 x 17 copy paper will work just fine as well. (If you don’t have the ability to print on 11 x 17 paper, keep reading for an alternative printing option!)

All of my pentominoes puzzles are sized for plastic pentominoes made up of 1-inch squares.

If you don’t have a class set of plastic pentominoes, I do have a printable version of 1-inch pentominoes available to download and print. Please be aware that you MUST allow students to turn over the printed pentominoes pieces in order to solve the puzzle! This is less obvious than with the plastic pentominoes pieces.

MATH = LOVE RECOMMENDS…

Amazon offers several brands of plastic pentominoes which I recommend. Each brand is sold in a tub containing six sets of twelve pentominoes each for a total of 72 pentomino pieces.

• Learning Resources Rainbow Pentominoes
• Learning Advantage (edxeducation) Pentominoes
• Didax Colorful Pentominoes

Want each student to have their own set of pentominoes? I also offer a set of free printable one-inch pentominoes pieces which can be laminated or printed on cardstock for durability.

Letter Sized Version

Since many teachers have told me that they do not have access to a copy machine or printer which prints on 11 x 17 paper, I have also uploaded a letter-sized version below which prints on 8.5 x 11 inch paper. You will have to trim and tape or glue the two letter-sized pages together to form the pentominoes puzzle board.

Hint Cards

Pentominoes puzzles which use an entire set of twelve standard pentominoes can be quite tricky to solve.

While some students can handle this level of perseverance, other students might benefit from a few hints in solving the puzzle. I have created a set of 4 printable hint cards that can be used with students to give them (or yourself!) a small piece of the solution.

These hint cards can be downloaded at the end of this blog post.

There are several ways you can use these printable hint cards in your classroom.

If you are having students work on the puzzle as a full-class activity, you can make the pentomino puzzle hint cards available after students have worked for a certain amount of time.

If you are using the pentominoes puzzles as an early finisher activity or as a puzzle of the week for students to work on in their spare time, you could post the puzzle without any hints on day 1. On each subsequent day, you could add a different hint card.

I look forward to seeing what other ways that teachers come up with to make these hint cards work for their students.