puzzlers

The Coloring Problem

How few colors can you use to fill in a map so that no neighboring regions are the same color?

Word Pyramids – A Delightful Vocabulary Puzzle

A fun, abstract vocab puzzle in which students can add one letter per line, forming a pyramid of words.

Puzzlement Tournament

Perfect to wrap up the year: a four-round puzzlement tournament.

Begin with a small, simple word and identify its antonym. Then, take this second word and find its antonym. Many times, you’ll find that an antonym of an antonym isn’t always related the original word.

Puzzler: A Number With ‘A’

Counting up, what’s the first number with an “a” in it?

Puzzle: Words Within Words

In need of some nice word puzzles that will keep your students busy? Ask them to find as many words as they can within another word. For example: can you find 10 words made from the letters in “soldier”? How about 20? 50?

Puzzle: Word Ladders

One of my favorite tricks in the classroom was having a “puzzle of the day.” The great difficulty was finding puzzles that challenged my students, but didn’t require meticulous work or strange knowledge. Word Ladders were always a consistent hit.