Pentominoes Truck Puzzle

Can you arrange a set of 12 pentominoes pieces to solve this Pentomino Truck Puzzle?

My high school students were a bit less impressed with this pentomino puzzle than some of the others we have solved recently. Multiple students told me that it didn’t really look like a truck at all. I told them to squint at the puzzle and use their imagination…

Puzzle Instructions

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

Puzzle Source

I ran across this pentomino truck image from the Pentamania blog.

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.

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. Since I put out a new pentominoes puzzle each week, I put out a new hint each day. On Monday, I put out hint 1. On Tuesday, students have access to hint 1 and hint 2. And so forth.