T Puzzle

Can you solve this letter T puzzle by arranging the four given pieces to form a symmetric capital letter T? It’s deceptively simple looking.

Looking for more alphabet-themed activities and puzzles for your classroom? Here’s a few examples of the other alphabet-related activities I have created.

• 
  Alphabet A-Z No Four in a Row Puzzles
• 
  Alphabet A-Z Hidoku Logic Puzzles
• 
  Alphabet Mazes Printable
• 
  H Puzzle
• 
  T Puzzle
• 
  M Puzzle

Instructions

Arrange the four given pieces to form a symmetric capital letter T. The pieces may not overlap one another in the final configuration.

Difficulty Warning

I said in the introduction to this blog post that this four piece letter T puzzle was “deceptively simple looking.”

After all, how hard could it be to arrange just four pieces to form a symmetric capital T?

When Martin Gardner wrote of this puzzle in his column in Scientific American, he said, “I know of no polygon-dissection puzzle with as few pieces that is so intractable.”

Puzzle History and Source

This T-shaped puzzle actually originated in the early 1900s as a method of advertising. Companies would print their logos on the four puzzle pieces and distribute them to potential customers.

If customers were stumped by the puzzle, they were encouraged to contact the company for the solution. The Wikipedia article for the T Puzzle features a picture of an 1898 version of this puzzle.

ThinkFun used to have a downloadable version of this puzzle on their now defunct Puzzles website. An archived version thankfully still exists. I used this PDF to format my jumbo pieces.

Using this Puzzle in the Classroom

I actually used this puzzle with students back in 2017 during the first year I ever had a puzzle table in my classroom. I used a small set of laminated pieces that I had printed from the puzzles.ca website.

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!

Students found the puzzle to be very tricky and even declared it to be impossible.

I decided to enlarge the pieces and to put disc magnets on the back of each piece so the puzzle can be hung from my magnetic dry erase board in my classroom.

By hanging the puzzle up, I am able to catch the interest of so many more students.

T Puzzle Variations

According to ThinkFun, there are actually 2 different symmetric capital Ts that can be made using these four pieces.

In addition to these two T’s, you can also use these four pieces to make a trapezoid. So, this T Puzzle is actually three tricky puzzles in one!

My students usually have enough trouble finding a single T, so I didn’t add the extra challenges to the puzzle instructions.

If you have a student who finds the solution too quickly, you can easily challenge them to one of these extension tasks!

Similar Letter Shape Building Puzzles

If you like shape building puzzles like this, I have previously shared the H Puzzle and the M Puzzle.