Options for Printing and Prepping the Puzzle
There are several options for printing and prepping this puzzle.
The easiest way to distribute this puzzle to students is to print the page with the puzzle pieces, have each student cut out their own pieces, and let them build their square grid on their desks.
If you plan on reusing the puzzle pieces from year to year, I highly suggest running the pages through a laminator first to make the pieces more durable.
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.
I highly recommend splurging a bit on the actual laminator and buying the cheapest laminating pouches you can find!
If you are giving each student their own copy of the puzzle, this is entirely unnecessary. Just print on some pretty, colorful paper and GO!
If you are looking to display the resulting work or if you would like students to keep their work in a folder or notebook, you might want to print the next page in the PDF file which includes a 3 x 3 puzzle grid for students to build their solution upon or glue their pieces on after solving.
In my opinion, this page is most useful for those who are opting to display or keep the resulting solved puzzle. If you are reusing the puzzle pieces with different classes, I would just put the puzzle pieces in bags and forego the printable template.
If you are working with younger students or with a population of students who needs a bit of starting place for their puzzle solving, there is another version of the grid in the file that shows which puzzle piece belongs in the top left corner of the square.
Including this piece of information will drastically reduce the amount of time it takes older students to solve the puzzle, so I would be very discerning about whether your students need this scaffolding or not.
Ultimately, you know best what your students need. When I first started sharing puzzles I created for my classroom 8 years ago, I never imagined that they would be used in so many diverse classrooms around the world.
