Filter by: Content type: ALL Problems Articles Games Stage: All Stage 1&2 Stage 2&3 Stage 3&4 Stage 4&5 Challenge level:
I cut this square into two different shapes. What can you say about the relationship between them?
What is the smallest number of tiles needed to tile this patio? Can you investigate patios of different sizes?
Arrange your fences to make the largest rectangular space you can. Try with four fences, then five, then six etc.
Investigate how this pattern of squares continues. You could measure lengths, areas and angles.
How many ways can you find of tiling the square patio, using square tiles of different sizes?
If I use 12 green tiles to represent my lawn, how many different ways could I arrange them? How many border tiles would I need each time?
A thoughtful shepherd used bales of straw to protect the area around his lambs. Explore how you can arrange the bales.
A follow-up activity to Tiles in the Garden.
Explore one of these five pictures.
Investigate all the different squares you can make on this 5 by 5 grid by making your starting side go from the bottom left hand point. Can you find out the areas of all these squares?
What happens to the area of a square if you double the length of the sides? Try the same thing with rectangles, diamonds and other shapes. How do the four smaller ones fit into the larger one?
The ancient Egyptians were said to make right-angled triangles using a rope with twelve equal sections divided by knots. What other triangles could you make if you had a rope like this?
Use the interactivity to investigate what kinds of triangles can be drawn on peg boards with different numbers of pegs.
Place the 16 different combinations of cup/saucer in this 4 by 4 arrangement so that no row or column contains more than one cup or saucer of the same colour.
When newspaper pages get separated at home we have to try to sort them out and get things in the correct order. How many ways can we arrange these pages so that the numbering may be different?
How many triangles can you make on the 3 by 3 pegboard?
An investigation that gives you the opportunity to make and justify predictions.
Using different numbers of sticks, how many different triangles are you able to make? Can you make any rules about the numbers of sticks that make the most triangles?
What is the largest number of circles we can fit into the frame without them overlapping? How do you know? What will happen if you try the other shapes?
If we had 16 light bars which digital numbers could we make? How will you know you've found them all?
Investigate the different shaped bracelets you could make from 18 different spherical beads. How do they compare if you use 24 beads?
Cut differently-sized square corners from a square piece of paper to make boxes without lids. Do they all have the same volume?
What do these two triangles have in common? How are they related?
While we were sorting some papers we found 3 strange sheets which seemed to come from small books but there were page numbers at the foot of each page. Did the pages come from the same book?
Investigate the number of faces you can see when you arrange three cubes in different ways.
Place four pebbles on the sand in the form of a square. Keep adding as few pebbles as necessary to double the area. How many extra pebbles are added each time?
Can you continue this pattern of triangles and begin to predict how many sticks are used for each new "layer"?
An activity making various patterns with 2 x 1 rectangular tiles.
How many tiles do we need to tile these patios?
Use the interactivity to find all the different right-angled triangles you can make by just moving one corner of the starting triangle.
If you have three circular objects, you could arrange them so that they are separate, touching, overlapping or inside each other. Can you investigate all the different possibilities?
Can you make these equilateral triangles fit together to cover the paper without any gaps between them? Can you tessellate isosceles triangles?
Compare the numbers of particular tiles in one or all of these three designs, inspired by the floor tiles of a church in Cambridge.
Polygonal numbers are those that are arranged in shapes as they enlarge. Explore the polygonal numbers drawn here.
The challenge here is to find as many routes as you can for a fence to go so that this town is divided up into two halves, each with 8 blocks.
Ana and Ross looked in a trunk in the attic. They found old cloaks and gowns, hats and masks. How many possible costumes could they make?
You cannot choose a selection of ice cream flavours that includes totally what someone has already chosen. Have a go and find all the different ways in which seven children can have ice cream.
How many shapes can you build from three red and two green cubes? Can you use what you've found out to predict the number for four red and two green?
In my local town there are three supermarkets which each has a special deal on some products. If you bought all your shopping in one shop, where would be the cheapest?
Investigate what happens when you add house numbers along a street in different ways.
In this investigation, you must try to make houses using cubes. If the base must not spill over 4 squares and you have 7 cubes which stand for 7 rooms, what different designs can you come up with?
What is the smallest cuboid that you can put in this box so that you cannot fit another that's the same into it?
Explore the different tunes you can make with these five gourds. What are the similarities and differences between the two tunes you are given?
A description of some experiments in which you can make discoveries about triangles.
48 is called an abundant number because it is less than the sum of its factors (without itself). Can you find some more abundant numbers?
Can you find out how the 6-triangle shape is transformed in these tessellations? Will the tessellations go on for ever? Why or why not?
What is the largest cuboid you can wrap in an A3 sheet of paper?
This activity asks you to collect information about the birds you see in the garden. Are there patterns in the data or do the birds seem to visit randomly?
Have a go at this 3D extension to the Pebbles problem.
This challenging activity involves finding different ways to distribute fifteen items among four sets, when the sets must include three, four, five and six items.