Did you know?
A pentomino (pen-TOM-ih-no) is a shape made of five squares joined edge to edge. There are exactly 12 different pentominoes!
Ernő Rubik made his famous cube puzzle in Hungary in 1974. It took him about a month to solve it himself!
The '15 puzzle' has 15 sliding number tiles and one empty space. In 1880, people in America went crazy for it!
Try this: Shape Sudoku
Shape key: 1 circle, 2 square, 3 triangle, 4 star. Copy the grid. Fill the blanks so every row, column and 2×2 box has all four shapes. Draw the shapes in!
| 2 | 1 | ||
| 3 | 4 | ||
| 4 | 3 | ||
| 1 | 2 |
Show answer
row by row: 2413, 1324, 4231, 3142
Go further: Make Your Own Pentominoes
Take squared paper. Colour five squares that touch along their sides, not just at corners. That is one pentomino! Now try to find all 12 different ones. A shape that only looks flipped or turned counts as the same one. Ask an adult to help you cut them out. Big challenge: all 12 pieces fit together into a 6 by 10 rectangle. There are 2,339 ways to do it!