KenKen is proud to be featured by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
KenKen brings mathematical reasoning, problem solving and the joy of discovery into classrooms around the world. Now it has a home on NCTM.org too, with teacher resources and lesson plans sitting right beside the puzzles.
A home for KenKen at NCTM.org
NCTM has given KenKen a place of its own at NCTM.org/KenKen. Teachers find the puzzle itself there, along with teacher resources and lesson plans, in the same place they already go for classroom material.
Founded in 1920, NCTM describes itself as North America's largest mathematics education organization. It is the professional home of the math teaching community, and for a great many teachers it is the yardstick a classroom resource gets measured against.
There is a pleasing symmetry to it. KenKen was invented by a teacher, for his own students, in his own classroom. Finding it on NCTM.org is the puzzle arriving exactly where it started.
A puzzle that teaches the thinking, not the answer
The reason it belongs in a math classroom is the same reason students keep asking for another one.
Reasoning, not recall
Every grid has exactly one answer and no way to guess it. Students test an idea, eliminate what cannot work, and defend the reasoning that survives.
No new math to teach
Add, subtract, multiply, divide. The difficulty lives in the logic and never in the arithmetic, so the puzzle meets students exactly where they already are.
The joy of discovery
The moment a stubborn grid finally cracks is the moment a student decides that mathematics is something they are good at. That moment is the whole point.
Three steps to your first class
No accounts to create, no setup the night before, no lesson plan to write.
Start at NCTM.org/KenKen
The puzzles, the teacher resources and the lesson plans all sit together in one place, on the site you already use.
Pick a grid that fits the room
3×3 for early grades, up to 9×9 for your fastest thinkers. The rules never change, so one explanation covers every level.
Hand it out and step back
Let them reason it through, circulate and nudge the ones who need it, then walk the class through the strategies that worked.
Bring it to your classroom tomorrow.
One grid, five quiet minutes, and a room full of students arguing about mathematics because they want to.