My granddaughter recently received a Sain Smart Jr. Tetris Puzzle for her birthday. I got to watch as she and her younger sister had lots of fun creating pictures using the colorful pieces. Here are some of their creations:

 

As they played they experimented and learned what they liked and what they didn’t like. In the process, they learned some mathematics and may not have even realized it.

Yeah, they could also make all the Tetris puzzle pieces fit in the frame. It seems to help if you save some of the five wood grained pieces for last.

From what I could tell, this was a very fun and educational toy.

Now here I’ll share some information about the number 1274:

• 1274 is a composite number.
• Prime factorization: 1274 = 2 × 7 × 7 × 13, which can be written 1274 = 2 × 7² × 13
• The exponents in the prime factorization are 1, 2, and 1. Adding one to each and multiplying we get (1 + 1)(2 + 1)(1 + 1) = 2 × 3 × 2 = 12. Therefore 1274 has exactly 12 factors.
• Factors of 1274: 1, 2, 7, 13, 14, 26, 49, 91, 98, 182, 637, 1274
• Factor pairs: 1274 = 1 × 1274, 2 × 637, 7 × 182, 13 × 98, 14 × 91, or 26 × 49,
• Taking the factor pair with the largest square number factor, we get √1274 = (√49)(√26) = 7√26 ≈ 35.69314

35² + 7² = 1274

1274 is the hypotenuse of a Pythagorean triple:
490-1176-1274 which is (5-12-13) times 98.
It is also 2(35)( 7), 35² – 7², 35² + 7²