By Peter Harrison

Blocks Box

Maria’s favourite toy is a square box con­tain­ing blocks on which are writ­ten all the num­bers from 1 to 8 as above. She has learned how to slide the blocks around in the box – but not yet how to take them out. So, for exam­ple, she could move the 6 down into the space, then the 5 to the right and then the 2 down and so on.

Recently, I was aston­ished to see that, start­ing from the above arrange­ment,  she had man­aged to slide the blocks to a posi­tion where, count­ing the space as 0, each of the three rows and each of the three columns and each of the two diag­o­nals added up to the same total – and with the space back in the same column.

Read­ing the lines across the page from left to right (first line, then sec­ond line, then third line):

What are the nine num­bers in sequence in Maria’s arrange­ment?

Send your answers to ETFOvoice@etfo.org with the word “Trivia” in the sub­ject line.You may also mail your entry to The Edi­tor, ETFO Voice, at the address on the mast­head. Three win­ners will be drawn from all cor­rect entries received by Jan­u­ary 28, 2012.

SOLUTION TO OUR LAST PUZZLE

The num­ber ‘spelled’ out by the let­ters ‘CAT’ is 672.

The win­ners are cho­sen by lot­tery. They are:

Tien Yeung, Ele­men­tary Teach­ers of Toronto Local

Car­rie Oliver, Rain­bow Teacher Local

Nancy Baughan, Greater Essex County Teacher Local

Con­grat­u­la­tions!

Solu­tions to pre­vi­ous puzzles