KenKen – a Classroom Champ, Student Stories, and Web Kendoku

KenKen is a surefire winner in the classroom – my students eat them up like candy. During the last two regular weeks before final exams I used the 6×6 KenKen from the New York Times website, Easier and Medium versions, with my students. I can always tell when I’ve got a great lesson plan because all I see is the tops of my students’ heads (since they are so focused on their work). This set of puzzles was no exception to the rule; they were so intent on solving the puzzles that the classroom was quiet, focused, and intense. Several students became so animated that I wanted a video of their facial expressions and body language to show other teachers. It’s hard to imagine the concentration kids have unless you experience it in your classroom. I remembered the old maxim, “If you want kids to pay attention and treat something with importance, you need to make it part of an upcoming test.” So there were two KenKens as part of their final exam. Students could opt to do an Easier one, or they could do a Medium one for more points. Many students worked for quite an extended time on these puzzles, several staying after the final exam session to work longer – they were that committed to getting a solution.

More good news for KenKen lovers: here’s a website that has an online puzzle generator. The generator allows users to create KenKen puzzles of various difficulty levels in both 4×4 and 6×6 formats. You can then play online, print the page, or use a screen capture program to print several puzzles on a page for classroom use. This site is called Web Kendoku. On the site it mentions that KenKen may also be called cancan, square wisdom, and/or latincalc. Currently Web Kendoku generates puzzles of varying difficulties at random, but future plans will allow the user to ask for puzzles of a particular difficulty level.

Related Posts:

KenKen – A New Puzzle for Sudoku and Kakuro Enthusiasts

Puzzles and Games

Digit Puzzles–Using Number Sense Strategies to Foster Algebraic Thinking for All Students

Kakuro: A Puzzle with Number Combinations, Logic, and Challenges for All Abilities and Grades

Pentomino Puzzles; Spatial Sense, Geometrical Visualization, and Reasoning Skills

Polyominoes: Puzzles, Patterns, Problems, and Packings, by Solomon Golomb

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