10 Brain Teasers - for display in the classroom
The images below feature 10 brain teasers that I have found, created, or adapted for display in the classroom. The purpose is to establish a culture for learning mathematics, to organize the physical space, and to foster curiosity in the students. The puzzles increase in difficulty (as I infer), and the answers are provided. Feel free to export these images and print them yourselves if you like any of them.
Martin Gardner has several books, including the one from which the above puzzle comes, that I will definitely feature in print in my classroom. They are fascinating and challenging, which is great for fostering curiosity in students who are already interested in mathematics! You can see my math classroom book recommendations here.
Frederick's Cognitive Reflection Test is an interesting study, featuring two other awesome brain teasers you can use. You can read the whole context of those riddles in his article.
The fun part about the above brain teaser is asking then "how tall is the penguin?" You can't solve it with only the two shown relationships!
The above number sequence is a kind of "see-and-say" sequence. Fun fact: if you continue the sequence, the desired number repeats indefinitely.