Related Collections

Summing Consecutive Numbers

Many numbers can be expressed as the sum of two or more consecutive integers. For example, 15=7+8 and 10=1+2+3+4. Can you say which numbers can be expressed in this way?

The Best Card Trick?

Time for a little mathemagic! Choose any five cards from a pack and show four of them to your partner. How can they work out the fifth?

Take Three from Five

Caroline and James pick sets of five numbers. Charlie chooses three of them that add together to make a multiple of three. Can they stop him?

ACE, TWO, THREE...

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Take a look at this video.

Can you work out how Charlie ordered the cards to perform the trick?

Once you've had a chance to think about it, click below to see some suggested starting points:

Charlie started by thinking:

“Ace” has three letters so it should go in third place. “Two” has three letters so it should go in sixth position. “Three” has five letters so it should go in eleventh position. “Four” has four letters so it should go in fifteenth position...

Luke started by thinking:

I should be able to work backwards, so I'll start with just the Jack, Queen and King and see what happens...

Alison started by thinking:

If I arrange the cards from Ace to King to do the trick, I won't reveal the cards in the right order. But I could keep a record of the sequence they come out in...

Can you take each of their starting ideas and develop them into a solution?

Can you use each method to perform the trick in a different language, or with two suits of cards together, or in reverse order from King to Ace, or...?

Send us your explanations of other methods that you came up with to order the cards.

Generalising. Practical Activity. Mathematical reasoning & proof. Pedagogy. Making and proving conjectures. Video. Working systematically. Place value.