Revealing Products
How to create
Use a blank table with 4 product rows and columns. There are also groups of four missing numbers at the top and left sides – these will have some of the numbers, possibly with duplication, from 2 to 9. Fill in the table out of sight of your child, and then flip over or cover the numbers.
The challenge
Your child can ask to reveal, one at a time, up to 10 of the 16 product entries. The goal is to find the entries for the top and left sides before running out of turns.
Example
Imagine all cards are flipped over in this example. If your child chose to flip over the card that has the 63 under it, they would know it came from 7 and 9. Flipping over any other card in the same row or column as the 63 would show where the 7 and 9 are. Suppose the second card they flipped over is the 56. The third column must be 7, and also the second row is 9 and the third row is 8.
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!