Christmas Math Logic Puzzles (Sudoku Inspired)
Around here we embrace STEM all year long, but during the holiday season it is easy to get the kids super excited about even those bits of STEM (ahem… math), that may be a struggle for some students. It is amazing how excited and passionate kids get about their lessons and learning projects when they are invested in the theme. In this activity we use the excitement of the holidays to capture children’s enthusiasm with these Christmas Math Logic Puzzles.
Christmas Printable Math Puzzles
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Are you raising kids that are logical thinkers? Are they able to engage those critical thinking skills and solve mind bending puzzles?
Did you know these skills are highly teachable and not an innate ability? That’s right, as parents and teachers we need to consciously teach kids how to use logic and apply their knowledge and skills in a critical way to solve problems.
These skills are incredibly important no matter which career path students hope to take one day. Our world is filled with more misinformation than ever before in history. Knowing how to filter through all of the wrong information to find the correct path to reach a goal will help your child in all facets of their life from childhood to when they are seniors!
That’s a lifetime of benefit from learning these skills. And today we are learning those skills and putting them to use with some fun math puzzles!
Math Puzzles
Inspired by Sudoku, these cut and paste problems are fantastic for using at home or in the classroom. You can also use them virtually. We had great fun with our Halloween Logic Puzzles, so we decided to do it again for Winter and Christmas!
Today our world is facing an ever increasing demand for STEM jobs and creative problem solvers. We need to prepare our children for the jobs of the future. Jobs that may not even exist yet. In the past, employers looked for those who were capable of fast and accurate computation. This is no longer the case. At the top of employers’ desired skills list is now creative problem solving.
Logical reasoning puzzles and games like these will help kids think critically about a situation and work out possible solutions rather than relying on rote memorization.
How Do These Christmas Puzzles Work?
These puzzles are set up in a 3×3 grid. To correctly solve the puzzle, no row or column can have the same ‘friend’ more than once.
In order to complete the puzzles students will have to look at each row and column to be sure they don’t repeat the characters.
They must use logical reasoning to consider things like, “If the this snowman is already in the middle column, it must be in the left and right columns for the other spaces.” Or notice things such as, “If this row already has the top hat snowman and that the one with the green hat, the only other option is the Santa hat snowman.”
I would encourage your kids to figure out all the placements first and be sure they’re determined the correct solution. Then they can grab their glue stick and glue them all down.
And of course, once they’ve completed their puzzle, they can check it using the included answer key.
What’s Included In the Christmas Math Printable?
This pdf includes 3 different cut and paste secular Christmas logic puzzles. It then includes a simple answer key page to check the solutions.
Ready to grab your own copy? Simply join the STEAM Powered Family mailing list to get the free logic puzzles set! Not only will you get access to this resource, but you will gain access to many other free educational resources for your home and classroom.
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