Tessellation artist Makoto Nakamura has made several versions of these perpetual puzzles that are great for an independent student activity. They would be perfect for early finishers in a classroom, for a warm up to a small group or individual tutoring session, for enrichment for gifted/talented students, and even just for fun at home. You could also use them to introduce the mathematical concept of tessellation. I have the lizard version, but there are also parrots, dogs, cats and beetles. Each comes with 36 tessellating pieces. Students can choose to use them in three different ways,
Creative tessellation: place the pieces in any order to make your own shape or design.
A puzzle: Place the pieces together within a square arrangement (6 x 6 tiles) so that no piece is next to or touches another piece of the same major color.
A more difficult puzzle: Place the pieces together within a square arrangement (6 x 6 tile) so that no same color touches anywhere on the pieces.
My students really enjoyed working with these perpetual puzzles, and they were a great introduction to the topic of tessellations. For much more on teaching tessellations, see this post.
