Context
- Where pentominoes fit in the broader world of educational geometric puzzles:
- Geometric Puzzles in the Classroom
- Geometric Puzzles Unit
- Geometric Puzzles for Prospective Math Teachers
Puzzles
- On this website:
- Virtual Pentominoes to play online.
- Three (free) pentomino books: 216 printable puzzles ranging from easy to diabolical.
- Simultaneous Pentomino Rectangles
- Tiling Rectangles with Pentominoes
- Squaring Pentominoes using one-inch grid paper and scissors
Tiling with pentominoes is explored in Polyomino Lessons (pp. 18-33). This is done not with physical pentominoes, but on grid paper (or virtual grid paper.)
Hints for solvers
These guidelines are usually, but not always, helpful.- Save the P for last. Perhaps because it is so compact, you often need it as the final piece.
- Avoid creating an internal straight line. It is usually hard to complete the puzzle from there.
- Avoid placing a piece so that the leftover space is symmetrical. It is usually hard to fill that space.
Lessons
- Pentomino Labs, an instructional unit:
- Teacher Notes, including some alternatives and extensions
- Find the pentominoes (Polyomino Lessons, pp. 3-6)
- Three-Pentomino Puzzles
- Pentomino Rectangles (Working with Pentominoes, pp. 14-23)
- Pentomino Blowups (similar figures)
- One-inch graph paper (useful for pentomino puzzles)
Working with Pentominoes, a book from Didax, also available as a PDF, which makes it easy to print, duplicate, or project pages for classroom use.
Also...
Pentomino Activities, Lessons and Puzzles is a classic from the 1980's, (going out of print, but possibly still available from mheducation.com, item # 0884883744).