Pentominoes Mammoth Puzzle

Bring some prehistoric fun to your classroom with this fun pentominoes mammoth puzzle.

Puzzle Instructions

Use a standard set of 12 pentominoes to form the image of a mammoth on the provided grid. Pieces may be flipped or rotated, but they may not overlap one another.

How I Use This Puzzle with Students

Every week, I choose a few different logic puzzles to put out for my students to work on. I call this the “Puzzle of the Week” section of my dry erase board.

Usually, I try to pick a pentomino puzzle, a printable puzzle for students to do on paper, and a number puzzle with movable pieces.

I usually print three copies of each pentomino puzzle, and I hang it on the board with a magnetic pocket from Charles Leonard holding a set of pentominoes pieces for each copy of the puzzle.

Students just unclip the puzzle page and grab the entire pocket of pentominoes pieces to take back to their seats.

Printing and Prepping the Pentominoes Puzzles

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 Pentominoes
• Didax Colorful Pentominoes – CURRENTLY THE CHEAPEST!

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.

Hints for Solving

Pentominoes puzzles can be quite tricky to solve. It’s not unusual to hear that students have worked on a puzzle for over 30+ minutes without finding a solution.

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.

I do find that the more experience students have with working pentominoes puzzles, the less they need the hints!

The hint cards do drastically cut down on the necessary solving time for this puzzle.