Terrier Pentominoes Puzzle

I’m continuing the theme of sharing a weekly pentominoes animal puzzle with this week’s terrier puzzle. My students who tackled last week’s penguin pentominoes challenge were super excited to see a new animal puzzle to take on.

Can you arrange a set of twelve pentominoes to form the shape of a terrier?

I discovered this dog-shaped pentominoes puzzle on Abaroth’s Pentomino Zoo. This site has 21 different pentomino animal puzzles. Each puzzle features an image which must be created using a full set of 12 pentominoes.

I printed three copies of the terrier pentominoes puzzle on 11 x 17 cardstock. Often Amazon will list packages of this cardstock as “used.” This usually just means that the outside packaging has been torn. I am often able to pick these packages up for 50% off as a result.

I printed this puzzle on 11 x 17 paper since the pentominoes I have in my classroom are made up of 1-inch squares. I wanted my students to be able to lay the pentominoes pieces directly over the terrier outline.

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.

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.

I placed each set of pentominoes in a magnetic pocket below the puzzle on the dry erase board. I like this method of displaying the puzzles because students are able to easily grab the pocket of pentominoes and take them back to their desks.

I did an almost identical set-up for my Penguin Pentominoes Puzzle last week!

I also re-used my Pentominoes Challenge Poster I made to hang above a set of 13 free printable pentominoes puzzles I shared earlier in the year.

One of my students who was unable to figure out the penguin puzzle last week was able to solve this week’s terrier puzzle. They were so excited! They even started working ahead on next week’s puzzle since I already had it printed.

Hint Cards

A set of four hint cards is available to download for students (or teachers) who might need a bit of assistance in solving the puzzle!