Freya’s Chalk Tile Puzzle
On a bright Saturday in the back garden, Freya drew a neat rectangle of chalk squares on the patio. Emma carried a basket of tiles, Sarah held the clipboard, and Kevin fetched pegs to mark the corners.
Freya said, “Let’s make it a perfect rectangle: the length is 4 more than the width.”
Emma counted the chalk squares along one side and called the width w. Sarah wrote it down. Kevin measured the other side and agreed it was w + 4.
They decided to cover every chalk square with exactly one small tile. Freya tipped the basket and announced, “We have 120 tiles in total, and we’ll use them all with none left over.”
Sarah nodded. “So the number of tiles equals the number of squares in the rectangle.”
Kevin grinned. “Once we know the width and length, we can plan where to plant our mini herb pots along the long edge.”















