The Silent Board Game is a strategy to help students practice finding and writing the rule for a function. I was introduced to the silent board game strategy at a session on “Fun Functions: Active and Interesting Function Activities” hosted by CPM at the 2016 Summer Conference of the Oklahoma Council of Teachers of Mathematics. Setting up the Silent Board Game When I entered the session that the room was in, one of the first things I noticed was a laminated strip of paper taped to the wall. You could also use technology to project an input/output table on the screen for students to see. CPM ..read more

The Loops Puzzle is a fun edge-matching puzzle which involves arranging the pieces to make a square containing closed loops. This puzzle is actually three different puzzles in one! Instructions Arrange the nine pieces in a 3×3 square to form designs with the following number of closed loops: one closed loop, two closed loops, and three closed loops. Puzzle Source This was the very first puzzle that jumped out to me when I started browsing the collection of 199 different mathematical puzzles offered as a free download from IREM de Lyon. This is a top-notch puzzle resource if you speak Frenc ..read more

Practice converting between radical form and rational exponent form with this free and fun rational exponents activity that is formatted as a square tarsia matching puzzle. What math courses is this activity suitable for? I created this square matching puzzle to give my AP Calculus AB students some much-needed practice converting between expressions written in radical or rational form and expressions written as rational exponents. While this is considered an Algebra 2 topic in Oklahoma where I teach, the majority of my calculus students have forgotten that the square root of x can be rewritten ..read more

Can you assemble the four pieces to create a 4×4 square with a checkered pattern? Instructions Place the four provided pieces on the 4 x 4 grid to form a square with a checkered pattern. Puzzle Source I ran across this puzzle in a collection of 199 different mathematical puzzles that is offered as a free download from IREM de Lyon. This is a top-notch puzzle resource if you speak French. I sadly do not speak French, but I was able to use the Google Translate app to translate quite a few of the puzzle instructions in order to use them in my classroom. Other puzzles I typed up from this same ..read more

Download this printable 1 cm graph paper. This standard graph paper features a 1 cm grid and is available to download for free in a convenient pdf format. It is designed to print on US letter size paper.  Need Another Type of Graph Paper? As a high school math teacher, I often find myself creating various types of cartesian graph paper for my students to use for various projects or to accompany a specific math worksheet. I have decided to start uploading these as pdf files so other teachers can use them in their classroom as well.  List of Graph Paper Types  Inch Grid Sizes  ..read more

Can you place the numbers 1 to 7 in the diagram so that each line of numbers has the same sum? My students tackled this puzzle this past week as one of our puzzles of the week. A few of my high school students had a bit of trouble making sense of the puzzle directions. They just wanted to make just the two horizontal lines have the same sum. So if you are working with younger students, it might be worth it to go over the directions before starting and make sure students realize where all of the lines of 3 are in the puzzle diagram. Puzzle Instructions Place the numbers 1 to 7 in the triangula ..read more

In this pentominoes rabbit puzzle, you are challenged to use a standard set of twelve pentominoes to build the shape of a rabbit. This makes a great addition to your classroom to celebrate the start of spring or Easter. We tackled this as our puzzle of the week this week since Easter is this upcoming Sunday. I hung three copies of this puzzle on the dry erase board with sets of pentominoes in one of my favorite classroom organization tools: Charles Leonard magnetic pockets. I love that students can grab the entire pocket and take the pentominoes back to their table without dropping pentomino ..read more

Can you place the numbers 1 to 5 in the correct places to solve the equal sums puzzle? Puzzle Instructions Place the numbers 1 to 5 in the triangular diagram so that the sum of the numbers on the vertices of the smaller triangle is equal to the sum of the numbers on the vertices of the larger triangle. Puzzle Source I ran across this puzzle in a collection of 199 different mathematical puzzles that is offered as a free download from IREM de Lyon. This is a top-notch puzzle resource if you speak French. I sadly do not speak French, but I was able to use the Google Translate app to translate qui ..read more

In this pentominoes turtle puzzle, you are challenged to use a standard set of twelve pentominoes to build the shape of a turtle. This is part of a collection of animal-shaped pentominoes puzzles available here on my blog. More Animal Pentominoes Puzzles Pentomino Pig Pentomino Elephant Pentomino Terrier Pentomino Penguin Pentomino Frog Pentomino Butterfly Pentomino Goose Pentomino Reindeer Pentomino Fish Pentomino Turtle Puzzle Instructions The goal of this pentominoes turtle puzzle is to construct the shape of a turtle using a standard set of twelve pentominoes. The pentominoes may be f ..read more

Looking for a fun divisibility rules activity? This collection of free divisibility rules activities and games will make teaching divisibility fun! Rules of Divisibility  A number is considered to be divisible by a given number if there is no remainder when the two numbers are divided. When working with large numbers, it is often easier to use divisibility tests instead of performing long division by hand.  2: A number is divisible by 2 if the last digit is even (0, 2, 4, 6, or 8).  For example, 48 is divisible by 2 because the last digit of 48 (8) is even.  3: A number is ..read more