Picture Sudoku: Sudoku for kids

How to play

1. Each row (across) has every critter once.
2. Each column (down) has every critter once.
3. Each box — the squares shaded the same colour — has every critter once.

Tap an empty square, then tap a critter. (Or tap a critter first, then the squares it goes in.) A critter that doesn't fit wiggles and hops back out. Stuck? Help lights up a square where only one critter fits, and the critter that goes there.

Helping your child find the next step

Every board can be finished with two simple ideas, so nobody ever has to guess:

Only one critter left

Look at one empty square. Which critters are already in its row, its column and its box? If all but one are there, the last one goes in the square.

Only one place left

Pick a critter, say the frog, and a row that has no frog yet. If the frog can't go in any of the row's empty squares but one (because a frog is already in that column or box), that square is the frog's.

Saying it out loud together — "the cat is here, and here, so it can't go there" — is a lovely way to practise careful thinking and checking.

How the levels grow

• Up to age 7 (or no age set): 4×4 boards. Level 1 has twelve critters already in place and four to find; each level takes one more away, down to six.
• Ages 8–12: three 4×4 warm-ups, then 6×6 boards from 24 critters in place down to 12.

The critters change every round. A board never uses two critters of the same colour, so children can tell them apart by colour and by shape.