[This is a back-issue of this website’s newsletter]
Let me talk about powers of ten first, then about cryptarithms.
My wife asked me to prepare some worksheets so my son could practice multiplying and dividing powers fo ten. I figured, why make just one or two worksheets when I can make a Worksheet Generator that can churn out as many problems as anyone could want? So I did, and put it online.
If your child (or class) needs practice multiplying and dividing by powers of 10, visit the worksheet generator, fill out the form at the end of the page, and generate a printable worksheet. Or generate a dozen or three, one for each student in the class, so they can’t copy each other’s work 😉
Now to talk about cryptarithms – also known as alplametics or crypt-arithmetics
Some time ago, I put up a page of cryptarithm puzzles. The web page only had a handful of puzzles, and no solutions. I knew at the time that that wasn’t really a world-shattering offering.
If you’re a fan of cryptarithm puzzles, there’s good news – I’ve now made a cryptarithm gadget, that displays a new cryptarithm puzzle every day (the solution is shown the next day). You can find it on the cryptarithm page on my site. It can actually be added to any web page at all, including (if you have one) your personalized iGoogle home page.
If you prefer to call these puzzle by other names, I made versions of the same gadget that call them alphametics or crypt-arithmetics instead. Seach the Google gadget directory to find them.
If you want a version that doesn’t show the solutions, or shows a puzzle every week instead of every day, um, sorry, I didn’t make one of those. Hit reply and drop me a line, so I know someone’s interested, and I’ll put one together!
The puzzles in the gadget and on the website all come from a CD-ROM with 4 million puzzles (and their solutions), and will work with any modern computer system. You can grab it for only $14.99.