tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-249344002007-05-14T11:53:59.796-05:00Douglas TwitchellBlogger27125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24934400.post-71572398660872514702007-05-14T11:49:00.000-05:002007-05-14T11:53:59.829-05:00

This will be the last post in The Problem Site News. Why? Because with three puzzle sites (plus a puzzle store), it doesn't make sense to maintain multiple blogs, when a single blog could be used to keep people updated on all the Puzzler Sites. The new blog is located on The Puzzler Store website, at the following URL: http://www.puzzler-store.com/blog/. If you have subscribed to this blog,

Douglas Twitchelltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24934400.post-29968111807928538792007-05-12T14:57:00.000-05:002007-05-13T21:04:01.884-05:00

I was very excited yesterday to realize that Tile Puzzler was almost up to one thousand puzzles. If you don't know, Tile Puzzler is a site filled with shape puzzles, most of which have been submitted by visitors to the site. So, with the site only a few months old (I started building it in November of 2006), it's amazing to me that it has achieved this much popularity. This morning I looked

Douglas Twitchelltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24934400.post-51479288413978174872007-04-03T15:34:00.000-05:002007-04-13T15:33:05.824-05:00

Be sure to read all to the end of this post, so you can find out how to win a free month's subscription at Quote Puzzler! Here are some interesting pieces of trivia about Pentominoes (or Pentominos, depending on how you like to spell it!) First, in case you didn't know what a Pentomino is, it's a shape made up of five square tiles all touching at least one another tile on a complete side.

Douglas Twitchelltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24934400.post-2906634222361322692007-02-13T07:56:00.000-05:002007-02-09T11:07:19.055-05:00

Here's a fun puzzle to try out. It's a scrambled word. Your job is to rearrange the letters so they spell out a word. The nice part of this puzzle is, once you get two letters next to each other that are supposed to be next to each other, they combine into one single tile. Thus, you put the word together piecemeal until the whole word is complete!

Douglas Twitchelltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24934400.post-65593891431128046882007-02-09T11:02:00.000-05:002007-02-03T09:01:46.778-05:00

There has been a new game added to The Problem Site. This game is called Math Scramble Math Scramble is a simple (but occasionally quite difficult!) math puzzle, in which the player must place numbers into the blank spaces in an addition or multiplication problem. Tough to explain, but easy to figure out how it works once you see it! Play Math Scramble! If you would like to link to this new

Douglas Twitchelltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24934400.post-90736970770784955592007-02-03T08:54:00.000-05:002007-02-03T09:01:42.391-05:00

I thought readers might be interested to see that there's a new "special" puzzle over at the Tile Puzzler site. It's called the "Jeorge Puzzler". Here's a sample of a Jeorge Puzzler: In a Jeorge puzzler, the areas of the puzzle pieces are 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11, and they all fit together to make a 6x6 square. These are a little bit easier than the "Rickie Puzzlers", whose puzzle pieces have

Douglas Twitchelltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24934400.post-26585260785402090412007-01-11T08:24:00.000-05:002007-01-11T08:39:39.788-05:00

Happy New Year! I hope everyone is excited about being back to school and continuing the learning process. In a moment I'm going to tell you about how you can create a puzzle to add to your own website, but first, an amusing story. (At least, I HOPE it's an amusing story!) On The Problem Site, there is a page where people can do a survey on any game, expressing whether it works well in their

Douglas Twitchelltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24934400.post-10411378984126278912007-01-02T10:19:00.000-05:002007-01-02T10:30:05.045-05:00

As promised, over Christmas break (between the flu and a chest cold) I put together a new set of Brainfood Puzzles. These can be found here: BrainFood There is one new Puzzle for each week from now until the beginning of June. Then, of course, I will be taking the summer off, and we'll start again in the new school year. What kinds of puzzles will you find in the Brainfood this winter/spring?

Douglas Twitchelltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24934400.post-1166023239708238532006-12-13T10:13:00.000-05:002006-12-13T10:20:39.730-05:00

There is a new game on The Problem Site. Before you get too excited, let me warn you - this game is not like anything else on the site. This game relies on both thinking and reflexes. The game is: Adders!. The purpose of this game is to help students review basic arithmetic facts - addition facts, subtraction facts, multiplication facts, and division facts. I realize that in many schools

Douglas Twitchelltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24934400.post-1164978645943966182006-12-01T08:08:00.000-05:002006-12-01T08:10:45.953-05:00

Get ready! Jeorge is excited to host the very first Tile Puzzler Tournament! This is a free tournament to join, so head on over to the Tile Puzzler website and create your free membership account. Once you are logged in, you can click the link to join the tournament on the home page of the site! The tournament will run for one week, starting on December 3. Have fun!

Douglas Twitchelltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24934400.post-1164373315281036322006-11-24T07:38:00.000-05:002006-11-24T08:05:08.660-05:00

Play A Rickie Puzzler! What is a Rickie Puzzler? Well, to explain a Rickie Puzzler, you need to know what Triangular Numbers and Square Numbers are. Most people are familiar with square numbers: 1, 4, 9, 16, etc. These are numbers which can be obtained by multiplying a number by itself (5 x 5 = 25, for example, so 25 is a square number). Visually, a square number can be pictured as an array

Douglas Twitchelltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24934400.post-1162941116042759252006-11-07T18:03:00.000-05:002006-11-08T22:08:52.980-05:00

For anyone who is curious to see what is "in the works", here's your opportunity to see a game in the process of development. Take a look at Tile Puzzler - a new puzzle website hosted by The Problem Site Tile Puzzler is similar to Quote Puzzler, in that it will offer a daily puzzle. Unlike Quote Puzzler, however, Tile Puzzler will not be offering word games, but a more geometric puzzle. Tile

Douglas Twitchelltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24934400.post-1158753302532687612006-09-20T06:46:00.000-05:002006-09-20T22:23:27.533-05:00

I am pleased to announce that, after a very long break, The Problem Pages are back online. They have been closed for upgrades for quite some time, and those upgrades are now - more or less - complete. If you don't know what The Problem Pages are, they are a special section of The Problem Site which posts problems on a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly basis, for students (and adults!) to solve.

Douglas Twitchelltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24934400.post-1158143067516059312006-09-13T05:16:00.000-05:002006-09-13T05:24:27.526-05:00

When I decided it was time to rebuild The Problem Pages at The Problem Site, I thought for sure I would only be able to open up one or two of the Problem Pages, as many of the Problem Moderators had moved on to other things. But lo and behold; they are all back! That's right! I will be moderating The Brainfood Page, Sasha Joseph intends to take up the torch on The Maine Page, Brian Twitchell (

Douglas Twitchelltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24934400.post-1157113616671874292006-09-01T07:10:00.000-05:002006-09-01T07:28:06.323-05:00

It's not even Labor Day yet, and I'm already saying "Welcome Back To School". It doesn't seem possible. But many of the teens in the church youth group I direct went back to school on Wednesday, and the rest of them started yesterday. Gone are those good ole days when school didn't start until after the first Monday in September! I hope everyone has had a great summer, but now it's that time

Douglas Twitchelltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24934400.post-1151520608264576562006-06-28T13:43:00.000-05:002006-06-28T13:50:08.320-05:00

After my previous entry about Summer Activities With Educational Value, I thought I wouldn't be posting any more until the fall. However, I needed to make a quick addendum to the previous post. In that post I stated that the Quote Puzzler site has six games. That number is now up by one, with the addition of Top Letters. This is a timed game in which players have four minutes in which to

Douglas Twitchelltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24934400.post-1144973324250253812006-04-13T18:55:00.000-05:002006-06-27T13:47:51.536-05:00

Is it Scrabble? No. It's Word Builder. Word Builder is the newest in the recent line of games to be added to the Quote Puzzler word game site. At first glance, you'll think Word Builder is Scrabble, but as you begin to play it, you'll realize there are some differences. For starters, this is a solitaire game. You are not competing against other players; you're just trying to get the very

Douglas Twitchelltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24934400.post-1149207384148799792006-06-01T19:04:00.000-05:002006-06-01T19:16:24.220-05:00

What are you going to do this summer? What will your children do? Will your summer activities be purely recreational? Or will they have educational value? Let's think about some things that you and/or your children can do that will be both fun and valuable. First, though you might not expect to hear it from someone who runs an educational website, let me begin by saying: Go OUTSIDE! I mean it.

Douglas Twitchelltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24934400.post-1148612730659378112006-05-25T21:57:00.000-05:002006-05-25T22:05:30.673-05:00

If you haven't been to the Quote Puzzler site for online word games, or if you haven't been there for awhile, you'll want to take a minute to go see what's new there. For starters, the Quote Puzzler has been upgraded to a new, more responsive, more robust game environment. It has also been converted from Java to Flash, which is an exciting new wrinkle, since it means that the new version of the

Douglas Twitchelltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24934400.post-1146743270826969612006-05-04T06:30:00.000-05:002006-05-04T06:53:48.603-05:00

Since The Problem Site first began, there have never been "grade level" indicators on any of the games. No notices that say: "This game is designed for ages 4 and up". This was a deliberate choice - part of the premise of this site has always been that students should be challenged to push beyond limits, and discover what they are capable of. Telling a student "This game is too hard for you

Douglas Twitchelltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24934400.post-1146073823600356982006-04-26T12:38:00.000-05:002006-04-26T12:50:23.760-05:00

At last, Articles For Educators has undergone the same painful process which The Problem Site underwent a month ago; the site has been transferred to a new and better server, which will provide more stability and scalability. Articles For Educators is a website devoted to providing lesson plans, classroom activities, and educational theory articles. Each article on the site was written by an

Douglas Twitchelltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24934400.post-1144419351262502282006-04-07T09:09:00.000-05:002006-04-07T09:19:29.786-05:00

Lloyd King's puzzle book: Amazing "aha!" Puzzles. 317 lateral thinking ("outside the box") puzzles that you've never seen before. When I first saw the description of the book Amazing "aha!" Puzzles by Lloyd King, the phrase that caught my eye was "brand new lateral puzzles". I was skeptical. After reading a plethora of Lateral Thinking Puzzle books, I had my doubts that Mr. King had over three

Douglas Twitchelltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24934400.post-1143897687677962592006-04-01T07:54:00.000-05:002006-04-03T13:09:59.696-05:00

It's that time of year again. College students in Education classes have been assigned to pick an "educational website" and write a review. What is good, what is bad, what has educational value, and what doesn't. I look forward to this every year, and I dread this every year. I look forward to it because mostly the reviews the students write about games at The Problem Site are very positive. I

Douglas Twitchelltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24934400.post-1143686877789817632006-03-29T21:37:00.000-05:002006-04-01T15:20:27.506-05:00

What happened to the Problem Of The Week Pages? That's a good question! Initially, The Problem Site was designed specifically for Problem Of The Week and Problem Of The Month Pages. Students (and adults too!) could visit the site each week and get a new problem, solve it, and then submit their solution for grading. The Problem Moderator would review their solution, reply with comments and grade

Douglas Twitchelltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24934400.post-1143820404680860062006-03-31T10:16:00.000-05:002006-04-01T07:44:04.010-05:00

As you may or may not know, The Problem Site is in the process of moving to a new server this week. (Read previous entries for details on why this is happening!) So the question of the day is: Are you looking at the old version of the site, or the new one? Good question. And here's how you can tell which version you're looking at. If you were at The Problem Site and you got to this blog by

Douglas Twitchell