What you will need:

• A garden or an outdoor area where it is OK to collect nature items (may need to set rules about picking certain things such as flowers, or fruit fallen from a tree only).
• A brown paper bag
• Pencil
• Ruler
• Plain or grid paper to draw the graph.
• A timer

At the end of a math lesson I like to take a few minutes to share and reflect. Invite students to share their nature hunt results with the class by presenting their graphs. Encourage students to ask the presenter questions such as:

• Which item did you find the most of?
• Which item did you find the least of?
• Did you find the same number of any items? If so which ones?

The student presenting must use their graph to show the class as they answer questions asked about their nature hunt. 

I hope your kids enjoy this activity. 

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Engage and motivate your students to practice and review graph skills with this fun Math Mystery, the 'Case of The Greedy Gnome!' 
Students will be required to complete tasks involving graphs to unlock important clues that will help them solve the case. 
An optional video hook is available to set the stage to engage. 

Click your grade level to learn more about each resource packet. ​

Not sure what a math mystery is? Do you want to know more about how to use them? Check out the video below. ​​

You may also like to read this blog post
'Five Easy Ways to Use Math Mysteries in your Classroom.'

Still not sure if a math mystery is something you want? Try a full FREE math mystery available to download from my TPT Shop. The link will redirect you to where you can download the multi-grade bundle.  It is free to register if you don't have a login with TPT.

Last week I posted a new logic puzzle to solve. As promised, this week I will show the answers along with a solution guide.

Were you able to solve it? Did you find it easy, hard, or just the right amount of challenge? If using in the classroom, how did your students find it? 

Either way, as simple as it looks, this was a challenging puzzle that required a fair bit of problem solving. In case there was any struggle with this challenge, I've included a solution strategy guide for solving this particular puzzle.

The first clue states that Little Red bought flowers for Molly the Mouse. So we can mark 'YES' to connect Little Red to Molly Mouse and cross out the other possibilities in that column and row for the other characters.  

The second clue, 'the tulips were bought to say a special 'thank you' to someone', tells us that Tulips and thank will be a combo that go together. But, we cannot make any markings yet, we need more information. So just try and remember this for now. 

The third clue, 'Snow White received flowers as a 'get well' gift.' We still cannot make any more markings at this stage, except now we know from the previous clue,  that Snow White didn't receive Tulips, because Tulips were given to say 'thank you' and Snow White received flowers to say 'get well.' So just keep this information in mind again for later. 

The fourth clue, 'Larry the Wizard bought flowers for someone's birthday." This clue paired with the two clues above helps make some deductions. First, mark yes for  Larry and the reason 'birthday, and cross out the rest of that row and boxed column. 

Look back at the previous two clues we couldn't make markings on, we now can cross eliminate the possibility that Larry bought Tulips, since they were a 'thank you' not birthday. We can also cross off 'Snow White' as the recipient, because she received flowers to get well, not her birthday.

After removing those possibilities, suddenly we are reduced to only one empty box in the recipients section for Larry and Nivens McTwisp. If Larry couldn't have bought flowers for Molly or Snow White, then we can conclude that he must've bought flowers for Pinocchio.  
Then, if Larry bought flowers for Pinocchio and Little Red bought flowers for Molly, the last pair to match up is Nivens McTwisp with Snow White.  (See circled sections in the image above). 

Using the earlier clues where we couldn't cross off anything, suddenly allows us to make more markings with the new information discovered. 
- Snow white received flowers to get well, so now that we know that Nivens McTwisp bought the flowers for her, we can mark 'YES' for that reason in Nivens McTwisp's column.
- We also know that Tulips were given as a 'thank you,' so we can eliminate tulips as being the flower gift from Nivens to Snow.

After crossing out those possibilities, a new piece of information shines in the flower section. If neither Larry or Nivens bought the tulips, then we can say that Little Red bought the tulips.  This stays true to the clue that the tulips were a 'thank you' gift because it is the last possibility remaining

The fifth clue helps complete the last bit of the puzzle, 'Nivens didn't buy the daisies.' Since we have already figured out that Little Red bought the tulips, it leaves Larry who bought the daisies. Therefore, it leaves Nivens with the roses. 

​Yay! Puzzle complete! Did you get the same results?

Thank you for using this puzzle. I hope it was fun and challenging. I plan to make more; maybe even some that are more challenging too. Subscribe to my newsletter or follow my TPT store to stay updated when new resources are available. 

​Download this FREE logic puzzle to print and complete, or give to your students, HERE. 

If you would like to challenge your students this week, this puzzle may do just that! It requires careful reading and lots of thinking. Don't be fooled by the 5 simple clues. 

Little Red, Nivens McTwisp, and Larry the Wizard bought some flowers. They each bought a different type of flower, for a different reason, and for a different character. Using the five clue statements given, and the table to help, can you solve who bought what for whom, and why? 

SOLVING TIPS:

• Use 'X' to eliminate possibilities.
• Write 'YES' or use a tick to show a discovery. 
• Read the clue statements more than once!
• Take your time to think about what the information means.

Feel free to post your solutions in the comments section below. I will reveal the answer, with a guide for the process to achieving the solution next week! 

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