Island Hopping With Products
These puzzles have islands (circles and squares) connected by bridges (lines). If there are two circles on either side of a square, then the square holds the product of the two circles.
The challenge
Fill in the missing numbers.
How to create
Make these puzzles by filling in the circles, then filling in the squares, and finally removing some of the numbers before giving it to your child.
In addition to practicing multiplication, these puzzles can be structured to practice common factors as well. In the first puzzle, the only number, other than 1, that divides 14 and 21 is 7, so that is the number in the bottom circle.
Helping your child
Puzzles are meant to be challenging and to take time, so please don’t ruin the fun by telling your child how to do them. These puzzles are chosen so that you can create them easily and then have fun solving them together.
If your child gets stuck on a puzzle, you have several options. You can, of course, give very small hints, if you can think of things that won’t give away the puzzle. You can suggest looking at smaller or simpler versions of the puzzle. Encourage your child to be bold in their ideas, even if sometimes they lead to dead ends. We all learn a lot from our mistakes and dead ends! Let your child know that it is perfectly okay not to solve a puzzle on the first (or second or third) try, and that useful ideas may occur to them if they leave the puzzle alone for a day or two.
These puzzles are meant to be fun and to teach problem solving. One of the greatest mathematical pleasures is that AHA moment, after many false starts and much wrestling with a problem, when the answer is finally discovered – be sure to let your child experience that feeling of discovery as many times as you can!