Filter by: Content type: ALL Problems Articles Games Stage: All Stage 1&2 Stage 2&3 Stage 3&4 Stage 4&5 Challenge level:
A game for 1 or 2 people. Use the interactive version, or play with friends. Try to round up as many counters as possible.
A game for 2 players. Given a board of dots in a grid pattern, players take turns drawing a line by connecting 2 adjacent dots. Your goal is to complete more squares than your opponent.
An extension of noughts and crosses in which the grid is enlarged and the length of the winning line can to altered to 3, 4 or 5.
A game for 1 person. Can you work out how the dice must be rolled from the start position to the finish? Play on line.
Here is a solitaire type environment for you to experiment with. Which targets can you reach?
Try this interactive strategy game for 2
An interactive game to be played on your own or with friends. Imagine you are having a party. Each person takes it in turns to stand behind the chair where they will get the most chocolate.
An interactive activity for one to experiment with a tricky tessellation
A game for 2 people that everybody knows. You can play with a friend or online. If you play correctly you never lose!
Use the tangram pieces to make our pictures, or to design some of your own!
A card pairing game involving knowledge of simple ratio.
A shape and space game for 2,3 or 4 players. Be the last person to be able to place a pentomino piece on the playing board. Play with card, or on the computer.
Here is a version of the game 'Happy Families' for you to make and play.
An interactive game for 1 person. You are given a rectangle with 50 squares on it. Roll the dice to get a percentage between 2 and 100. How many squares is this? Keep going until you get 100. . . .
A game to be played against the computer, or in groups. Pick a 7-digit number. A random digit is generated. What must you subract to remove the digit from your number? the first to zero wins.
Try to stop your opponent from being able to split the piles of counters into unequal numbers. Can you find a strategy?
A game for 2 people that can be played on line or with pens and paper. Combine your knowledege of coordinates with your skills of strategic thinking.
Choose the size of your pegboard and the shapes you can make. Can you work out the strategies needed to block your opponent?
Work out the fractions to match the cards with the same amount of money.
A train building game for 2 players.
Can you make the birds from the egg tangram?
Slide the pieces to move Khun Phaen past all the guards into the position on the right from which he can escape to freedom.
Hover your mouse over the counters to see which ones will be removed. Click to remover them. The winner is the last one to remove a counter. How you can make sure you win?
The computer starts with all the lights off, but then clicks 3, 4 or 5 times at random, leaving some lights on. Can you switch them off again?
A game to make and play based on the number line.
A game for 2 players. Can be played online. One player has 1 red counter, the other has 4 blue. The red counter needs to reach the other side, and the blue needs to trap the red.
Advent Calendar 2010 - a mathematical game for every day during the run-up to Christmas.
A game in which players take it in turns to try to draw quadrilaterals (or triangles) with particular properties. Is it possible to fill the game grid?
An ordinary set of dominoes can be laid out as a 7 by 4 magic rectangle in which all the spots in all the columns add to 24, while those in the rows add to 42. Try it! Now try the magic square...
Can you spot the similarities between this game and other games you know? The aim is to choose 3 numbers that total 15.
Collect as many diamonds as you can by drawing three straight lines.
A game for 2 players. Take turns to place a counter so that it occupies one of the lowest possible positions in the grid. The first player to complete a line of 4 wins.
A shunting puzzle for 1 person. Swop the positions of the counters at the top and bottom of the board.
This article, the second in the series, looks at some different types of games and the sort of mathematical thinking they can develop.
This article supplies teachers with information that may be useful in better understanding the nature of games and their role in teaching and learning mathematics.
A game for 2 players that can be played online. Players take it in turns to select a word from the 9 words given. The aim is to select all the occurrences of the same letter.
This is a game for 2 players. Each player has 4 counters each, and wins by blocking their opponent's counters. A good follow-on from two stones.
A simple game of patience which often comes out. Can you explain why?
A game for two or more players that uses a knowledge of measuring tools. Spin the spinner and identify which jobs can be done with the measuring tool shown.
The aim of the game is to slide the green square from the top right hand corner to the bottom left hand corner in the least number of moves.
Basic strategy games are particularly suitable as starting points for investigations. Players instinctively try to discover a winning strategy, and usually the best way to do this is to analyse. . . .
The game uses a 3x3 square board. 2 players take turns to play, either placing a red on an empty square, or changing a red to orange, or orange to green. The player who forms 3 of 1 colour in a line. . . .
Practise your diamond mining skills and your x,y coordination in this homage to Pacman.
A game for 2 or more people, based on the traditional card game Rummy. Players aim to make two `tricks', where each trick has to consist of a picture of a shape, a name that describes that shape, and. . . .
A game for 1 person to develop stategy and shape and space awareness. 12 counters are placed on a board. Counters are removed one at a time. The aim is to be left with only 1 counter.
A game for 2 players. Given an arrangement of matchsticks, players take it is turns to remove a matchstick, along with all of the matchsticks that touch it.
This is a game for two players. You will need some small-square grid paper, a die and two felt-tip pens or highlighters. Players take turns to roll the die, then move that number of squares in. . . .
A complicated game played on a 9 x 9 checkered grid.
This article for teachers describes several games, found on the site, all of which have a related structure that can be used to develop the skills of strategic planning.