Tarsia

I love Tarsia. I have been using it as part of my year 7 Weekend Homework Menu quite successfully and as classwork or revision with other groups. It always takes longer than I expect for them to finish the puzzle and some kids just don't seem to have any experience with puzzles and take a while to understand what they have to do.

We also used them in our transition-to-high-school Maths Olympiads, with giant puzzles on coloured card to make it more interesting. I've sometimes done one large copy when I work with a class, and had some students solve that one and blu-tac it to the wall. (As well as their smaller copies, as you can see. They seem to be very proud when they finish them!)