We use math puzzles and math games in our work. The following resources and activities are intended to be examples of what we do and what you can do.
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Building Sets
2D Pattern Sets
Shape Challenge Sets
2D Puzzles
3D Puzzles
Logic Games
Miscellaneous Puzzles
Paper Demonstration Toys
Demonstrations and Equipment
Building Sets – While there are many plastic and metal construction sets that are generally quite educational, these sets are specifically intended for creating models of mathematical objects. Children will make random objects and weapons at first; it may be helpful to provide pictures of math shapes and assistance with construction.
Geofix – Geofix, formally Geoshapes, is a kit with flat polygons of different shapes and colors that snap together to form 3D or 2D models. This allows you to make a wide variety of 3D shapes as long as you have the correct polygon sides.
ZomeTool: This set consists of rods in several colors and sizes and balls to join the rods. The rods of one color are different lengths but one shape; they can only be put on the balls in certain directions. This system encourages users to build certain complex shapes. You can create complex 3D shapes with ball connectors and plastic rods.
Puzzles and Games
2D Pattern Sets – Many sets are available for small children. The sets are used for free-form constructions as well as some directed games. Look for more varied shapes than just squares and triangles.
Fractiles–Create beautiful designs with magnetic tiles. 
Mosaic — Create a pattern in the tray. 
Triangle Pattern Blocks — Make free-form designs or use on tray. 
Pattern Blocks and Games — Make a design on your own or play a game using the blocks.
2D Shape Challenge sets – These games present you with a limited collection of pieces that must be put together in different ways, according to a deck of challenge cards or a booklet of problems.
Brick By Brick – Form a wall with all of the bricks in the shape on the card.
Shape By Shape – Form shapes on each card.
Square by Square– Form shapes on board for each card.
2D Puzzles – There are many types involving pictures and patterns. These are not jigsaw puzzles; they are solved by logic and deduction.
Four Z Puzzle — The tray has two sides; place the four pieces in each side. 
B’dazzle — Flat puzzles where the pieces match edges to complete dinos, people, and birds. 
Fantastic Island — Fit all of the pieces on the board, leaving out each piece in tern. Make pyramids as well. 
Frog Feast — Use the rectangles to form a continuous line. 
Izzi — Form the designs in the instruction booklet while matching colors on all adjacent edges. 
Jigsaw Puzzle — Assembled 
Jigsaw Puzzle — Pieces to assemble 
Jungle Bungle — A difficult puzzle that requires you to lay out the pieces in a square where all of the butterflies match on all edges. 
Kanoodle — Use the pieces to build ever more difficult designs from the instruction booklet. 
Stairstep Puzzle — Challenge 1 
Stairstep Puzzle — Challenge 2 
T-Puzzle — Challenge 1 
T-Puzzle — Challenge 2 
Tangoes — An extension of the ancient tangrams puzzles that includes five decks of challenge problems to build a specific shape. 
Transposer and Genesis –Two difficult overlay puzzles. 
Triangle Pentaminoes — Fit all of the pieces in the tray. 
Wood Rectangle
3D Puzzles – Everyone loves to assemble the pieces back into the original form. It may help to have a model or a photograph of the original shape. You may need to become proficient in solving the puzzle as others will learn by taking it apart. There are many kinds of puzzles available in wood and plastic as well as online 3D printer instructions.
4-D puzzle — Place the pieces in the tray. 
Five-piece pyramid puzzle — Make a pyramid. 
Colored Soma Cube 
Sliding Cube Puzzle 
Cube from 3 Pyramids 
Cyclone — Construct a ball from curved plastic pieces. 
Two Difficult Cube Puzzles 
Megamagz — Magnetic constructions with rods and balls. 
Plastic Cube Puzzles — Assemble a 3 x 3 cube. Puzzles increase in difficulty. 
Purple Octahedron — Twirl the pieces into a smooth octahedron. 
Pyramid — Make a triangular pyramid (tetrahedron) from two identical pieces. Two shown. 
Large Cube — Put all 6 pieces in the trays on each side of the cube. 
Soft Cubes — Make a cube of pieces of the same color, or same color labels facing out, or mixed colors. 
Triazzle 3D Pyramid — Make the pyramid so that all of the animal pictures match on the inside and outside. 
Wood Cube 
Wood Soma Cubes — 3 x 3 cubes; two shown. 
Several Wooden 3D Puzzles 
Wooden Rhombic Dodecahedron — Six pieces that are assembled in a clever way. Shown assembled and disassembled. 
Zobrist Cube — A set of pieces that can be used to create thousands of different puzzles of cubes.
Logic Puzzle Games – This is a wonderful and popular kind of game for all ages. There is a deck of challenge cards that progress from beginner to expert; you set up the challenges first and try to move pieces around according to the rules of the game. Although the puzzles are essentially for one player – there is no competition or two-player play – you may find that several people can work together and help each other. Each kind of game is a unique exercise for your brain that makes you think in unfamiliar ways, so it is very important to do the challenges in order as they each teach you techniques you will need for the next challenges. Children often tell us that they are so mighty that they can start on the hardest problems, but these children usually get frustrated quickly and give up; go in order.
Rush hour – Rush hour is the most popular and widely-available logic game. Each challenge is an initial arrangement of cars that need to be pushed around to allow a special piece to escape the board. It comes in versions with a range of difficulty as well as in variations with different types of pieces.
Laser Maze – A difficult but fascinating puzzle that requires you to reflect and split a laser beam to reach one or more targets. This takes some sophistication to understand how to set up each challenge.
Laser Maze Jr. – A beautifully simplified version of the Laser Maze that is easy for young children to use.
Lunar Landing – Move the landing robots until you reach the center red square..
Tipover – Set up the towers on the card, then tip each over and jump to the next until you reach your destination.
Chocolate Fix – Look at each group of hints to figure out the position of each chocolate piece on the board.
Chroma Cube — Arrange the 12 cubes in the grid according to the clues for each puzzle challenge. 
Color Code — Construct the colored design for each challenge by overlaying transparent plastic sheets. 
Cover Your Tracks — Each challenge card has an area marked; your job is to place all of the pieces on the board so that this area is covered. 
Leapin’ Lizards — Each challenge shows you how to set up the lizards; then you need to move them on the indicated paths until all of the lizards reach their destinations. 
GoGetter 1 — Create a system of roads to connect and disconnect specific places shown in the challenge book. 
GoGetter 2 — Create a system of roads to connect and disconnect specific places shown in the challenge book. 
Gridworks — Each challenge requires you to place the nine pieces according to the hints. 
Hoppers — Jump the frogs in the right order so one is left. 
Hoppers with Red Frog — Jump the frogs in the right order so that only the red frog is left. 
Marble Maze — Construct a maze according to the restrictions of each challenge. 
Marble Maze 
Pete’s Spike — Move the pieces according to a specific rule (you can only move by running into another piece) until the red piece reaches the center. 
River Crossing — Set up the logs according to the card, then use the hiker to move the logs to make a path to the finish. 
River Crossing 2 — New types of challenges extend the original game. 
Solitaire Chess — Each card has a chess problem; solve by moving the pieces until one remains. 
Stormy Seas — Set up the rods according to the challenge card, then slide rods back and forth to move the ship to the finish. 
Subtrax — Set up the pins for each challenge, and jump pins until only the orange pin remains.
Miscellaneous puzzles – These are puzzles that must be solved by moving pieces or building objects.
Alcatraz — Remove the metal ball from the cage. 
Alien — Arrange the six pieces on the end squares so that all of the aliens fit into holes. 
Coast To Coast — Move the car across the country by sliding it on the slots. 
Double Circle — Rotate the circles to bring all of the pieces of each color together in one oval. 
Elephant Puzzle — Move slide back and forth while turning the elephants in order to get them all facing out so the tray can be removed. 
Gordian Knot — Slide the plastic rectangles in the correct order to separate all of the pieces, then put them all back together. 
Interlocking Metal Puzzles — Separate the two pieces in each puzzle, then join them together again. 
Jumpin’ Frog Jungle — Arrange and intertwine the frog pieces to form a square, then do it in a triangle shape. 
Log Stacker — All of the logs must fit into the box. 
Martin’s Menace — Put all pieces into the frame so they all fit; a simple idea but very difficult. 
Square — Slide the four interlocking metal pieces into a square. 
Mind Jewel — Arrange the colored pentagon chains into a spherical shape (dodecahedron) by sliding the attached pieces. 
Number Crunch — Arrange the number in order or reverse order by rotating groups in the blue circle. 
Oops Pyramid — Construct a pyramid with the pairs of balls; balls of the same color cannot touch. 
Oskar’s Revenge — An unusual 3D maze. 
Otter Puzzle — A variation on the square 3 x3 and 4 x 4 number puzzles; this one is a 3D otter. 
Pin Hole Puzzle — Construct various shapes out of wooden blocks and rods. 
Port To Port — Move the sliders back and forth to put the ship together at one end, then back to the other end. 
Raging Rapids — Face all of the paddlers all in one direction, then face them all the other way. 
RIng Puzzle — Move all of the rings off, then put them back on. 
Sets — Mind-bending game for one or multiple players where you match three cards where the shape, filling, and colors are all different. 
Skyscrapers — Arrange the pieces in a 3 by 3 square base so that only building roofs show at the top. 
Sneaky Squares — Large and small version. Arrange four cube-like pieces to fit smoothly in the tray. 
Bottle and tray puzzles — For the bottle, move the ball next to the cork. For the yellow tray, move the balls to the outside pockets. 
Swish — A multi-player or solitaire game to match the balls and hoops.
Demonstration Paper Toys:
Demonstrations and Equipment:
3D Glasses 
Hexastat – Normal Distribution 
NASA Slide Rule – Back 
NASA Slide Rule – Front 
Proportional Dividers 
Vintage Slide Rules
[Complete list for reference]
- Pattern Blocks
- Shape sets
- Square by square
- Shape By Shape
- Brick By Brick
- Pentomino types
- Pentominoes
- Kanoodle
- Fantastic Island
- Tangoes
- 3D dissection
- Plastic cubes
- Wood soma cubes
- Purple Cube
- Green Cube
- Purple octahedron
- Tetrahedra
- Triazzle 3D
- Soft Cubes
- Building
- Cyclone
- Geofix
- ZomeTools
- Tensigritoy
- Expandigon
- Logic
- Rush hour, extra decks, jr
- Tipover
- Laser Maze Jr
- Laser Maze
- Hopper
- Hopper/red frog
- Subtrax
- Go-Getter 1,2
- Chocolate Fix
- GridWorks
- Lunar Lockout
- Pete Spike
- Tilt
- Hotspot
- Stormy Seas
- River Crossing (1,2)
- Top This
- Cover your tracks
- Solitaire Chess
- Marble Maze
- Leapin Lizards
- Color Code
- Pin hole puzzle
- Misc puzzles
- Bottle, yellow puzzle with two balls
- Elephants
- Rings
- The Brain (levers)
- Interlocking metal puzzles
- Raging rapids
- Sneaky squares
- Port To Port
- Log Stacker
- Skyscrapers
- Diamond Eyes
- Coast-To-Coast
- Jumpin’ Frog Jungle
- Alien
- Mind Jewel
- Green Ball
- Alcatraz
- Otter
- Double Circle
- Logic Master
- Oops Pyramid
- Oskar’s Challenge
- Martin’s menace
- Number Crunch
- Gordian’s Knot
- Locked Sticks
- Slide Rules
- Conceptis games
- Chain of Squares
- Foldup Tetrahedron
- 3D glasses/pictures