Each page is one machine with a secret rule. Students check two agents' guesses against the machine's three test runs, then write the rule that works for all of them. They finish a log of inputs and outputs, where some rows run backward, decode a six-number signal by running the machine backward and finding each input on the dial, and answer a "prove it" question. Pages 1 to 4 are on grade level with multiplying rules; pages 5 and 6 are support pages with adding rules; pages 7 and 8 are a challenge, with times 8 and times 9 and a log that runs almost all backward.
Do the first test run together: ask whether each agent's guess turns the input into the output. Students can then crack the rule in pairs and race to decode the signal word.
Ask your child to say each test run out loud: "3 goes in, 12 comes out." Then ask what the machine does to every number, and what it would do to a new one.
This pack supports the following Common Core State Standards for Mathematics:
© Copyright 2010. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers. All rights reserved.
Input-output puzzles where a machine changes every number with the same secret rule. Students test guesses against the machine's test runs, crack the rule, run it backward to decode a hidden signal and explain what the machine can and cannot print.
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