Sunday, July 12, 2009

Ken ken

This summer, I tried Ken Ken for the first time. This is a puzzle related to Sudoku, but with even more connection to mathematics. Depending on the difficulty level, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division can be involved.

I think this could be a welcome diversion when there is time to kill – if a few pupils get hooked on Ken Ken, their mathematics skill may improve considerably. Have a look at KenKen.com.

3 comments:

  1. hi, Bjorn,

    One of the hidden benefits of Kenken is the fact that it requires you to really understand factoring, permutations and combinations.

    There aren't many ways to learn it beyond the simplest level, so I've put some free vids up at http://mathmojo.com/kenken.
    That should help your students get beyond the beginner stage.

    Go figure!
    Brian (a.k.a. Professor Homunculus at MathMojo.com )

    By the way, I am a Trollkuenstner and did street magic in Olso in the 80. I loved it. Yg snokker ikke Norsk, though. (sorry about the spelling!)

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  2. A brand new KenKen interactive is now available for Facebook users
    http://apps.facebook.com/_kenken_/

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  3. Thanks for the comments!

    The last couple of weeks, I've been hooked - and I imagine what might happen is a pupil gets similarly hooked... It deserves a try in school.

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