Hi, and welcome back to this month’s blog! It’s hard to believe that I’ve already stacked up a full year’s worth of puzzles. Whether you’ve just discovered this little corner or you’ve been following along since the beginning, thanks for spending your time with me! I hope you enjoy this entry and many more to come.

The next entry is based on Dominosa. Nellie Hawkeye has just begun a new school year at Granville Elementary, and one of her first tasks is to pair up her students for a class assignment. The task is not so simple, however, as there are certain rules to how students can be grouped:

• Students can only be paired with students in adjacent classroom seats. Pairs can be horizontally or vertically adjacent, but not diagonally.
• Every pair must be unique. Nellie has already drafted a seating chart of the class with each student’s favorite color, and so every pair must consist of a unique set of colors.

The pictures below depict a sample puzzle on a 4×5 grid, along with its solution. Black boxes have been drawn around each pair to distinguish them from their neighbors.

Now, can you solve the puzzle below and help Nellie pair up her students?

The solution will be released in the next blog post. Also, if you tried the puzzle from the last blog entry, here is its solution below. If you got it right, treat yourself to something sweet!