13 Free Printable Pentominoes Puzzle Challenges

My students have been LOVING these free printable pentominoes puzzle challenges that I have posted this week on the dry erase board in my high school math classroom. Even though I am using them with high school students, they are suitable for almost all ages!

What are Pentominoes?

Pentominoes is a special name given to the set of polygons formed by connecting five squares along their edges. There are twelve distinct pentominoes that can be formed in this manner.

In fact, having students determine the number of pentominoes that exist can be a great way to introduce students to pentominoes.

I have heard of teachers giving students grid paper and having them find and draw all of the possible pentomino configurations. Then, students cut out the resulting pentominoes to create their own set of puzzle pieces that can be used to solve the following pentominoes puzzles.

Buying Pentominoes

If you plan on doing lots of activities with pentominoes, I highly suggest buying a set of plastic pentominoes for your classroom.

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.

My husband and I actually ended up splitting one of these sets. I have three sets in my high school math classroom, and he has three sets in his middle school math classroom.

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.

Pentominoes Puzzle Challenges

Last semester, my students really enjoyed solving (or at least trying to solve) the Star Pentominoes Puzzle. I had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to create some more pentominoes challenges for my students.

I’ve also received a few emails from teachers saying that their students were really struggling with the star puzzle. So, I wanted to create a free resource for teachers that could introduce students to pentominoes in a much less challenging way.

When I discovered an entire chapter’s worth of pentominoes puzzles in Gyles Brandeth’s The Complete Puzzler, I knew that they would make the perfect set of challenges for my students.

I typed up thirteen of the challenges and printed the pentomino puzzles four-to-a-page so I could easily laminate the individual challenges and cut them out.

MATH = LOVE RECOMMENDS…

A laminator is a MUST-HAVE for me as a math teacher! I spent my first six years as a teacher at a school with a broken laminator, so I had to find a way to laminate things myself.

I’ve had several laminators over the years. I currently use a Scotch laminator at home and a Swingline laminator at school.

• Scotch Laminator
• Swingline Laminator
• Nuova Laminating Pouches

I highly recommend splurging a bit on the actual laminator and buying the cheapest laminating pouches you can find!

Originally, I planned to laminate the challenge cards and hole punch each card in the corner so I could place them on a binder ring.

I visualized students grabbing the ring of pentominoes puzzles and taking it back to their desks. Then, students would be able to flip over the card for a new challenge after solving each puzzle.

The only problem was that I didn’t have any binder rings, and I was too impatient to wait for some to be shipped from Amazon.

Instead, I ended up using some magnetic clips that I purchased to use to post my Puzzle of the Week on the dry erase board.

I decided my new display was missing something, so I ended up creating an 11 x 17 poster to hang above the challenges.

To complete my new puzzle display, I took three of my magnetic pockets and placed them next to the puzzles to hold individual sets of plastic pentominoes.

As you can see from my dry erase board, I absolutely LOVE these pockets. I bought a package of six of them this summer, and I soon discovered that six was not enough. So, I ended up buying a second package.

I love that my students can grab the magnetic pocket and take it to their desks while working on the puzzles. Then they can pack up the puzzle pieces and return the pocket to the board when they are done.

I also use the magnetic pockets to hold Strimko Puzzle booklets for students to grab and work on during their free time as well as a book of mazes that have been a big hit with students recently.

So far, these puzzles have been a huge hit with my students. One of my puzzle-loving students has already completed 10 of the 13 challenges in the past week!