Make it Personal

Some puzzles, especially for young kids, lend themselves to mutual involvement.  Making a young boy or girl the protagonist of the story is a sure-fire way to engage them, to encourage their interests and to find out a lot about how they think. 

Story Puzzles

For example, when he was young, my son Will was passionately interested in birds.   So I gave him hand-written “puzzles”, involving birds, that were more like bedtime stories – two examples are given in the pdf file linked below.

pdf File with Examples of Story Puzzles

Engaging personal stories…

….include the listener as a character in the story

….include references to hobbies, interests, friends or pets of the listener

….are often silly! (e.g. talking animals, witches or giants, cars that fly)

….might be set in unusual locations like The North Pole, or on another planet,

….might take place in the future or in the distant past

Lunch Bag Puzzles

Our boys used to take their lunches to school in brown paper lunch bags – often I would write little lunch puzzles or fun quizzes on the lunch bags – later I wrote them out or typed them on the computer, then printed them and put them in the bags. 

These lunch “quizzes” can include simple math problems, trivia-type questions about sports or music, or whatever interests your young person.  Some examples of lunch quizzes are in the pdf file linked below:

pdf File with Examples of Lunch Quizzes

Speed Math “Stories”

You can also personalize speed math stories. Usually, a speed math challenge consists of a series of arithmetical calculations that the listeners have to do in their heads - and the fun is in keeping up with the calculations for as long as you can. In case this isn’t clear, a short example is available in the first link below. To hear an example of a more personalized version, click to play the audio file for Evie’s Speed Math Challenge.