SIMCC Games · Teacher guide
Nine Grid
A Sudoku-style number puzzle: every row, column and box holds 1 to 9 once.
- Trains
- Logical deduction · Checking systematically · Keeping track with notes
- Ages
- 8 and up
- In class
- On your own. One device each. Choose First steps: four lessons on rows, two directions, boxes and notes. Then Easy.
A ten-minute starter
- Show about 2 minShow a row of nine cells with one digit missing. Ask which digit goes in the gap. Then a 3 × 3 box with one gap. Every row, column and box holds 1 to 9 once.
- Play about 6 minStudents choose First steps and work through the four lessons. Fast finishers try an Easy grid.
- Talk about 2 minAsk a student how they found one digit: only one digit left for a cell, or only one cell left for a digit.
Questions to ask the class
- Where must a digit not repeat?Listen for: In its row, its column and its 3 × 3 box.
- What is the difference between "only one digit fits this cell" and "this digit fits only one cell"?Listen for: The first looks at one cell; the second looks at one row, column or box.
- When are notes useful?Listen for: When a cell has two or three digits left and you need to remember them.
A common mistake
Guessing a digit and carrying on, so one wrong digit leads to more.
How to help: Every grid can be finished without guessing. Ask them to say why a digit must go there before they enter it. A hint first points out a clash or a digit that does not fit.
Assign it
On the coach dashboard, choose your class under Cohorts. In Assign practice, pick Nine Grid and the drill First steps or Solve the grid, add a due date if you want one, then press Assign. Students find it on their Train page.
Set First steps for a new class, then Solve the grid.
Results show on the dashboard by student and by game once the server has checked them.