Can you solve it? Are you smarter than a Japanese schoolchild?

Hello Guzzlers. It is with huge pleasure that I introduce today’s puzzle, which is already a big deal in Japan. It’s called Menseki Meiro, or Area Maze, and I hope you find it as brilliant as I do. Area Maze is the creation of Naoki Inaba, one of the world’s most prolific inventors of logic puzzles. The puzzle is utterly simple to explain: find the missing value, which is denoted by a question mark highlighted in grey. Here’s what makes the puzzle genius: You are NOT allowed to use fractions in the solutions. Now you’ve got the hang of it, try these four. Naoki Inaba has been devising puzzles since he was a teenager. I asked him about Area Maze. In fact, it is so popular in Japan that now Area Maze problem books are published. Ill be back later today to show you how to solve the more difficult puzzles. Meanwhile, here’s how to solve the very first one. The trick is to complete the large rectangle, as below.

5 Maths Gems #36 One year ago today I started my gems series. In my first gems post I explained my thinking: "I’m fairly new to Twitter. Since I returned to work from maternity leave in January I haven't been able to post every week, but I do still write a couple of gems posts each month. Today I present my 36th gems post. 1. ... to this. These are perfect puzzles for students - accessible yet challenging. 2. I've read some nice posts about lesson starters recently. I particularly like Sarah Hagan's Good Things - I plan to use it as a weekly activity in form time next year. 3. We all love Desmos. Desmos recently announced the launch of Activity Builder. This week I've seen loads of brilliant new Desmos activities. Loco by Dan Meyer (@ddmeyer) - a fantastic introduction to loci.Polygraph Scatter Plot by Megan Schmidt (@Veganmathbeagle) - an excellent Polygraph activity. I also spotted this activity Intro to graphs and desmos basics by Sara B. 4. 5. That's it for this week.