His First Sudoku

Today M picked up sudoku as an early finishers after math, settling in next to me as he worked through it. It was his second time attempting the puzzle, as the first time he didn’t quite understand how it worked. Today, he was ready to try again, determined.

I could see the gears grinding in his brain as he successfully placed one, two, three digits.

“I got a whole row!” he cheered.

“Great work!” I told him as I checked another student’s math journal.

“I’m gonna write the little numbers in the corners for these next ones,” he said. Then suddenly, he pouted. “No wait, I think I messed it up.”

I leaned over. “Hmm, let’s see.” I spotted the mistake. “There! You put a 6, but the row already had one.”

“Do I have to start over?” he asked.

“Nope! Just erase that one and see what other digit could go there.”

“Okay,” he said, erasing and taking another determined breath in.

A few minutes later, he cried out, “I got a whole square, look!”

“Amazing! See?” I said. “Want me to check the book to see if it’s correct?”

“You can do that? Yeah!”

I checked. He was right.

“Now you can use that square to help you with the rest of the puzzle.” I looked at the clock. “But we have to transition to PE now.”

I started to gather the other students to transition. M stayed glued to the puzzle.

“How about you take it on a clipboard to PE? That way, in case you need a break, you have it.”

“Yes!!” he cheered, and quickly put the rest of his materials away, grabbing a clipboard and lining up.

The rest of the day, M had the clipboard with him. He used it for a couple moments during PE (“while the girls were arguing,” he said), as we lined up to go to Spanish, at lunch after finishing a Spanish word search, during quiet time, and then finally for music. When everyone returned upstairs to clean up, pack up, and get ready for closing circle, he bounded in excitedly.

“Ms. Amy, I finished the whole puzzle!” he said, showing it off to me.

“You did it!” I cheered. “Want to save puzzle #2 for tomorrow?”

“Nah, I think I’ll bring it home,” he smiled proudly.