Match Stick Puzzles
(Get Your Students Solving Problems with simple materials)

Match Stick Puzzle One: You are an office supervisor and the matchsticks
show the movable office walls. One of your workers gets a promotion so you
need to rearrange the walls so that each person has a square office.

NB You must use all of the matches.

Match Stick Puzzle Three:

Remove only three matches and leave three triangles.

Tips and Tricks:

 - Draw the original puzzle positions on the board so the students can go back to the first position.
- When handing out the matches, give out one box between 4 students and have them distribute the matches to their friends.
- Admit to your class that you don't know the answers to these problems then sit and solve the puzzles with the students.
- Demonstrate being a lifelong learner by doing the puzzles with the students and perhaps put off the onset of dementia for a few more years :)
- Set some homework that requires the children to find more examples of match stick problems.

The Solutions:

- You will gain so much more by perservering at these puzzles until you get the solution.
- The 'A-ha' feeling is so much sweeter if you solve the problem yourself.
- The solutions are just a click away, it would be sooooooo easy just to give up but resist the temptation!
- The puzzle solutions are but a click away... I'm sure you have more strength than that. Don't click!