Pentominoes

My son recently dis­cov­ered a puz­zle toy that once sat on the cof­fee table of my col­lege home. Everyone who walked in would try to put these geo­met­ric pieces into the shape of a 3 by 3 cube. Some folks did it quickly, some took hours, and some never fig­ured it out. My son was kept sim­i­larly busy explor­ing the shapes and I real­ized that he was onto some­thing and started try­ing to find out what these mys­tery shapes were called and where I could find more. I walked into Loudoun Learning ask­ing about some 3D manip­u­la­tives that I did not know the name of that might have been a pop­u­lar game in the 70s or 80s. The staff looked doubt­ful, but pointed me towards the rear of the store which is where I hit the jack­pot and dis­cov­ered some­thing very similar.

We now have sets of two dimen­sional and three dimen­sional pen­tomi­noes and a book of pen­tomino activ­i­ties. It was quite a splurge for this fru­gal mom, and worth every penny. They are per­fect for a rainy day, for when you are stuck home sick for a few days, for home­school­ing, or as a unique gift for the preschooler who has everything.