Commonly called "Einstein's Riddle" because it was supposedly invented by Einstein himself, this puzzle requires one to use logic to correctly fill in categories with the help of a series of hints. There are many examples, but in the one I've used, there are 5 houses. Each house has a color, and the family in each house has a specific nationality, sport, pet, and drink. One logically determines the color, nationality, sport, pet, and drink of each house using the list of hints. Click here for this specific example, which includes the downloadable worksheet.
Solving this puzzle in pairs is a perfect way for advanced students (teenagers and adults) to practice English speaking while working together to complete a task. It's also an activity with fun competition. To make things more challenging, I incorporate a dictation phase to the activity. Instead of directly giving the students the hints, I post the full list of hints in various locations around the classroom. (If the location allows, they could also be posted in the hallway or in a nearby room). I usually post around two lists of hints for every 10 students so that they don't crowd around the same spot. I tell students that they must obtain the hints through dictation. One students stays in his/her seat with a notebook and writing utensil while his or her partner gets up, goes to the list of hints, memorizes one or two, and returns to his/her partner to verbally recite them. The other student then writes down exactly what he/she hears. Students should then switch roles and repeat the process. They repeat until they have all of the hints. This phase takes about 15 minutes to complete.
Once students have all of the hints, they must bring them to the teacher to be checked. If the teacher sees that the hints were correctly copies, he/she then hands the pair the blank worksheet so that they may begin solving the puzzle. The teacher must make it clear that the students must solve this puzzle while speaking English only. This second phase also lasts about 15 minutes. The activity ends when a pair wins by correctly completing the puzzle first. At this point, if time allows, the teacher may allow the other pairs to continue working.
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