The math-oriented crossword puzzle

books:


	• Solitaire Battleships: 108 Challenging Logic Puzzles Peter Gordon, Mike Shenk Sterling, 1998 - 96 pages average customer review:based on 2 reviews view larger image
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An excellent exercise in logic

This is an outstanding puzzle book! I was surprised that there were only two reviews for it. Being a middle-aged male with a BA from a midwestern university and with an average math ability, this book provided hours of mental challanges and frustrations. Excellent for estabilishing or strengthening basic logic skills. Although I find it hard to believe that many average children would be able to complete many of the more advanced level puzzels.

The introduction is done very nicely. First, it spells out the rules then provides excellent examples in the skill of deduction. Too bad there are only 54 pages of puzzles. Perhaps a second book is in order?

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The math-oriented crossword puzzle

My 8-year-old can't do crossword puzzles yet, because he's just an average reader. But he is a math whiz and WOW, can he do Battleships! I'm working on making this game a standard for 2nd grade math and logic classes....

Ships ahoy--ten of them, in fact--and you have to find them! This solitaire version of the classic paper and pencil game consists of an "ocean," represented by a grid, in which a flotilla of vessels is concealed. Each fleet contains one battleship, two cruisers, three destroyers, and four submarines, and they may be oriented either horizontally or vertically, but never occupy adjacent squares. Most of the puzzles start you off by revealing the contents of a few squares, and digits alongside and below the grid indicate the number of squares in the corresponding rows and columns that contain ships. Fill in what you know in squares adjacent to ship segments, fill in water in rows and columns that have all the segments in place, and fill in segments in rows and columns that must have all their remaining empty spaces completed in order to equal the corresponding number. Go step-by-step through sample puzzles to learn strategies for eliminating possibilities and clueing into likely arrangements. Puzzles are ranked according to difficulty.Keep on working, and you'll be sure to sink that enemy fleet! 96 pages, 284 b/w illus., 5 3/8 x 8 1/4.

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