Living Math Ideas: Unifix Sudoku

I told you all that I was going to incorporate some Living Math ideas into our school year this round. I’m doing 4 days of our regular Math Curriculum, then one day of Living Math. As we go through them I plan to post on our games and activities, so here is our first one.

Today Strawberry Shortcake played a super fun game called Unifix Sudoku. The game is played using colored Unifix cubes instead of numbers.

This is a great way to work on spatial reasoning, problem solving, and patterning skills. Just like the regular numbered Sudoku, the kids have to make sure that there is one colored cube in each vertical and horizontal rows, then also within the smaller 6 cube square, you can’t duplicate a color in either of the rows.  There are a few blocks on the game board that have a color already in them, so those are the fixed cubes. The rest are movable. The games do come with an answer key, and they are suggested for ages 7 and up.

When we first started it, Strawberry Shortcake said to me “This is so easy mom, come on!”…then later I noticed her moving the little cubes around, then around again, then again. She finally got them all fixed and was so excited and proud of herself! It wasn’t as easy as she thought, but she worked her way through it and I love to see the little wheels in her head turning!

We both really liked this one, so we’ll play it again, and it’s easy enough that I can give it to my 2nd grader as well! Since I already had a set of Unifix Cubes, I purchased the  24 Set of Additional Sudoku Cards, but you can also get the full Unifix Sudoku Set, it comes with 36 Unifix Cubes, and 24 game cards.

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Click here for a Printable Version of our Living Math Schedule.