4 by 4 Logic Grid Puzzles: Six Clues

Four children and four toys per puzzle, two puzzles to a page, six clues each: this third-grade face is the family's biggest grid. On this print the first puzzle gives Leo, Max, Mia and Ben with a train, a ball, a doll and a die, and the six clues are all things a child does not have, three of them about Mia. The grid has sixteen cells, and there is no answer strip below it; the four ticks the child writes into the grid are the answer. The mark legend sits at the top right as on the smaller puzzles.

Going from three to four is not one more row; it is a grid where a single clue eliminates less, so the child must combine clues before any row closes, and hold the state of sixteen cells rather than nine. Six clues is the number that makes the puzzle fair: with all six used, every row resolves, and a child who stops at four will find two rows still open. Three clues about one child is the deliberate pattern here, since three crosses in a row of four leave exactly one cell, the first tick, and everything else follows. The teacher looks for the order in which ticks were written.

One portrait sheet, color for the toys. Have the child number the crosses with the clue that caused them the first time, so a mistake can be found. The three clues, one answer page is the three-by-three base, the two-attribute page is the other third-grade face with two pictures per child, and the yes, no and either-or page brings in positive and either-or clues on the smaller grid.