ABSTRACT
Many students, parents and even mathematics teachers perceive mathematics as dry and gloomy, a boring subject that leaves no room for creativity or excitement. In this chapter, the authors argue that it is also possible to capitalize on the puzzles' potential to advance teaching and learning of school mathematics. In line with the theme of the book, the authors support their argument with puzzles that revolve around numbers. They illustrated how puzzles can be used to promote students' understandings about number properties and argued that puzzles of a kind constitute a fruitful ground for nurturing specific ways of mathematical thinking and skills. In addition, They highlighted the importance of revisiting and abandoning some popular assumptions, such as focusing on natural numbers when attempting a solution. The problem was in the student having an out-of-date six-digit number that did not conform with the structure of contemporary cellular numbers in New Zealand.
