Sudoku

Wendy told me that Gage had been working in a little activity book and she noticed he was working a sudoku puzzle. This particular one was very elementary...only 4 rows and 4 columns. In other words, a total of 16 squares. She noticed that he was looking in the back of the book and using the provided answers to fill in the squares. She informed him that the object was to figure out where the numbers go without referring to the back of the book. So, she erased what he had filled in and helped him do one of the 16 square puzzles. She hadn't ever worked a sudoku puzzle herself, but she evidently gave him enough guidance that he was able to complete the second 16 square puzzle without assistance.

The next page of the activity book featured a full-blown 81 square sudoku. So she helped him with a couple of the lines and then left him to it while she started getting supper ready. He worked on it awhile and then I guess he ate supper. While Wendy and Kelly were eating he started working on it again and finished it. Wendy checked it and he had done it correctly.

When she was telling me about it last night, she remembered that he had referred to the back of the book when he did the earlier puzzles so she asked him if he had done that while working the large puzzle. He said no, that he had worked it out himself. And you could see in some of the squares that he had put a tiny mark in it. I asked him what the mark was for, but I still didn't quite understand what the purpose was. I guess I'll have to watch him work one to see how he uses the mark.

We've known he has pretty good grasp on numbers. And I'm sure that the difficulty level of that puzzle was low. Nevertheless, I have to say, I'm pretty impressed that a (barely) six year old would grasp the concept and stay focused enough to complete it.

I took over a stack of mild difficulty sudoku puzzles. He was eager to get started on them, but it was past his bedtime, so he had to put them away till tomorrow. It'll be interesting to see how he does with them.