Playing Card Puzzle
This blog post contains Amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases.
It’s a lazy Saturday morning that is turning out to be lazier than I had initially planned since I’m currently stuck on the couch with a sleeping baby on top of me. That means it’s the perfect time to share another puzzle that my students tackled recently on our magnetic puzzle wall (AKA dry erase board).
This Playing Card Puzzle is from The Little Giant Encyclopedia of Puzzles by The Diagram Group. This is the same puzzle book that the Eight Lettered Squares puzzle was also found.
Students are given six playing cards and three clues which are to be used to arrange the playing cards in the correct order.
You could definitely use actual playing cards for this puzzle, and that would probably be perfect if you are like me and have decks of cards in your classroom that are unfortunately no longer complete.
I just ended up using playing card clip art and laminating the cards.
Several of my students tackled this playing card puzzle over the course of a week in my classroom. Several were confused by some of the language of the puzzle, but I think that is just a result of their being unfamiliar with how logic puzzles are traditionally written.
Puzzle Solutions
Puzzle solutions are available on a password-protected solution page. I do not openly post the puzzle answer keys because one of my goals as a resource creator is to craft learning experiences for students that are non-google-able. I want teachers to be able to use these puzzles in their classrooms without the solutions being found easily on the Internet.
Please email me at sarah@mathequalslove.net for the password to the answer key database featuring all of my printable puzzles and math worksheets. I frequently have students emailing me for the answer key, so please specify in your email what school you teach at and what subjects you teach. If you do not provide these details, I will not be able to send you the password.
Not a teacher? Go ahead and send me an email as well. Just let me know what you are using the puzzles for. I am continually in awe of how many people are using these puzzles with scouting groups, with senior adults battling dementia, or as fun activities in their workplace. Just give me enough details so I know you are not a student looking for answers to the puzzle that was assigned as their homework!
I love all of your puzzles and we work as a class on a new one each Friday. My students are really working well together and enjoy the challenge. We cannot figure this puzzle out. We have put them linear and cannot make it work. We have tried placing them in different arrangements on the table but feel that we have cheated the parameters. Do you have the answer key? When it says the cards are “2 away” from another, does this mean there are 2 cards in between or 1 card in between? Does a diagonal count as “2 away” as you would have to make two moves (say move to the right one card then up one card)? Thank you
Your students are definitely on the right track thinking non-linearly! This is a tricky one!
“2 away from” means there are two cards in between.