Math Puzzles and Games, Grades 6-8: Over 300 Reproducible Puzzles that Teach Math and Problem Solving 1st Edition

My daughter was failing Pre-Algebra, her test grades were D's & F's. This book helped to bring her back from the brink.In the process of working with the teachers and learning what the school curriculum involves and DOESN'T involve, I realized that she was lacking not only in her reading comprehension and grammar for the word problems, but in some of the basic math logic.Along with double-checking her homework and reviewing her math facts, I give her 2 pages a week from this book and her test grades are now A's and B's. I don't know if it's the threat of more worksheets at home that is motivating her; or the skills she gained by completing these puzzles… regardless, I can say that it has definitely helped.It's important to note two things:1. I have also been working on her reading comprehension. The focus has been on sentence structure and some diagramming to help her deal with some surprisingly BAD grammar in the worksheets and workbooks from school. (DISCLAIMER: English was my minor, so if English isn't your strength, I highly suggest a tutor if you suspect this is the problem.)2. Beware. Expect some resistance. The puzzles are not easy, but they are solvable and will definitely give your child some perspective when handed worksheets at school! I had to talk her through the first few (answers are in the back!), but now she is completing them on her own.

This is an excellent set of puzzles, which suffers from too much careless on the part of all concerned.It's good value for the money; similar books often have just 50 to 100 problems, this has over 300. They are varied, and original, though I expect that some are much too hard for most 8th graders. I agree with the author that puzzles of this sort are a good way to improve math abilities and interest. The author doesn't merely give the answers, but explains them, whichBut, but but but: There are too many mistakes. In Puzzle #81: No, 1.234 + 98.765 does not equal 100. For another puzzle, a picture shows a clock with both hour and minute hands pointing absolutely straight down. Does the author mean that to represent 6:30, or is it a trick? Several clocks on that page were similarly wrong; was there not an editor to notice things like this? As for #134 -- "What is the percentage of all integers that contain at least one 4?" -- it seems to me that the answer is 99.999...%, not 19%. At first I thought I must be wrong, but as I kept finding other errors, I decided it wasn't me. (Remember that nearly all integers have at least a trillion digits, one of which is probably a 4.)On my Kindle, the basic arithmetic symbols (plus, minus, times, divided by, equals) sometimes but not always appear as the digits 1 to 5. Often it's obvious what's going on, but not always; problem #75 looks legitimate, but is really just a bunch of typos with no solution. Obviously there was a font issue, but why hasn't Amazon got a good system by now for avoiding such things? Fractions are created as graphics, inserted into the text, which is always ugly and sometimes confusing.Kindle navigation is clumsy. There should be an answer link at the end of each question, as many puzzle books have; instead, you have to go to the home screen, go to the book contents, then the answers, then scroll through to the number you want.So I hope that all concerned will be more careful next time around, but as long as you can handle the annoyances, you'll get some engaging and varied puzzles. It should have been done better, but I'm still happy that I purchased it.

I teach at an urban school where academics typically aren't high on the priority list of most of my students. Using problems from this book, my students enjoy learning Math. I'll post a random problem and left it up to see who can guess it. There have been some interesting guesses before they get to the correct one, but it interesting to see how they come up with their solutions. It definitely makes them think. Worth getting if you are looking for a book to get your students interested in Math.

We really like these books (we bought the Grades 3-5 edition as well). Our kids' school tends to teach Rote memorization of math facts and de-emphasizes basic problem solving skills. I think that a basic failing of the school's curriculum and one that we wanted to overcome this summer. That's where these books come in. None of the puzzles require anything besides the most basic of math skills. But, they do teach problem solving (how to recognize patterns, trial & error, experimenting, visualization, etc).We're pretty impressed with the results, too. After working with the books for a month, our kids have shown considerable improvement from the start of the summer.

I "coach" an after school math club for grades 4-6 and was looking for math puzzles to add to our other materials. A few of these are a little confusing but generally they are exactly the level I wanted.

The author should really post an errata. There are several puzzles with errors and it is pretty annoying that a correction is not available anywhere.For example, one puzzle (#243) needs the reader to figure out the sizes of smaller squares inside a bigger square. The given length of one side of the big square adds up to to 176. But according to the solution, the length of another side of the big square (that the reader needs to figure out) is 177. How is 176 equal to 177? How is this a square? The solution is completely wrong. Errors like this are frustrating occur in several places throughout the book.

I bought this as a resource for my math classroom. It is a great resource for "do nows" or class starters. Or you can give them as bonus work or extra credit. There are a lot of logic problems too for students who might not be great with computation skills. It is easy to use and to find puzzles that relate to what your teaching.