Subtraction Magic with 3 Digits

Subtraction Magic with 3 Digits

 Subtraction Magic with 3 Digits (Martin Gardner or earlier) Students need to reliably add and subtract numbers of several digits in order for this to work in the classroom. It is not a good trick to teach these, but rather to review something that 80% of students...
Animal Subtraction

Animal Subtraction

Animal Subtraction The Graceful Tree Conjecture (Ringel et al., 1967) These puzzles are the best way to introduce students to subtraction.  The puzzle is based on a classic unsolved problem that deserves to be in every student’s experience of mathematics. The...
Squaring the Square

Squaring the Square

Squaring the Square (R. L. Brooks, C. A. B. Smith, A. H. Stone and W. T. Tutte, 1930s) Give students addition and subtraction practice and link these numerical activities to geometry. A fraction of students, predominantly girls, thrive when the beauty of mathematics...
Addition Boomerang

Addition Boomerang

Addition Boomerang (MathPickle, 2010) Give your students practice working with single digit addition. Answers are usually less than 20, but differentiation is easy to accomplish. Get printable puzzle-sheet here. Addition Boomerang 100 (MathPickle, 2010) Boomerang...
The Greedy Pickle Monster Problem

The Greedy Pickle Monster Problem

The Greedy Pickle Monster Problem (adapted from The Cookie Monster problem by Richard Guy in the Inquisitive Problem Solver, 2002) I’ve made a slight change to the original Cookie Monster problem. Unlike the original cookie monster, the pickle monster is greedy....