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 two players on a large squared space.
A game for two players. You'll need some counters.
You have 4 red and 5 blue counters. How many ways can they be placed on a 3 by 3 grid so that all the rows columns and diagonals have an even number of red counters?
What does the overlap of these two shapes look like? Try picturing it in your head and then use the interactivity to test your prediction.
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?
If you can post the triangle with either the blue or yellow colour face up, how many ways can it be posted altogether?
In a square in which the houses are evenly spaced, numbers 3 and 10 are opposite each other. What is the smallest and what is the largest possible number of houses in the square?
A tetromino is made up of four squares joined edge to edge. Can this tetromino, together with 15 copies of itself, be used to cover an eight by eight chessboard?
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.
Which of these dice are right-handed and which are left-handed?
Make one big triangle so the numbers that touch on the small triangles add to 10. You could use the interactivity to help you.
Exchange the positions of the two sets of counters in the least possible number of moves
A magician took a suit of thirteen cards and held them in his hand face down. Every card he revealed had the same value as the one he had just finished spelling. How did this work?
Can you cover the camel with these pieces?
What happens when you try and fit the triomino pieces into these two grids?
A variant on the game Alquerque
Move just three of the circles so that the triangle faces in the opposite direction.
This article for teachers discusses examples of problems in which there is no obvious method but in which children can be encouraged to think deeply about the context and extend their ability to. . . .
A game for 1 or 2 people. Use the interactive version, or play with friends. Try to round up as many counters as possible.
Imagine a pyramid which is built in square layers of small cubes. If we number the cubes from the top, starting with 1, can you picture which cubes are directly below this first cube?
Take it in turns to place a domino on the grid. One to be placed horizontally and the other vertically. Can you make it impossible for your opponent to play?
Can you see why 2 by 2 could be 5? Can you predict what 2 by 10 will be?
Cut four triangles from a square as shown in the picture. How many different shapes can you make by fitting the four triangles back together?
An activity centred around observations of dots and how we visualise number arrangement patterns.
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.
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.
Use the three triangles to fill these outline shapes. Perhaps you can create some of your own shapes for a friend to fill?
Paint a stripe on a cardboard roll. Can you predict what will happen when it is rolled across a sheet of paper?
Can you fit the tangram pieces into the outline of Little Ming?
A package contains a set of resources designed to develop pupils' mathematical thinking. This package places a particular emphasis on “visualising” and is designed to meet the needs. . . .
Imagine a 3 by 3 by 3 cube. If you and a friend drill holes in some of the small cubes in the ways described, how many will have holes drilled through them?
Investigate how the four L-shapes fit together to make an enlarged L-shape. You could explore this idea with other shapes too.
Here are shadows of some 3D shapes. What shapes could have made them?
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.
In how many ways can you fit two of these yellow triangles together? Can you predict the number of ways two blue triangles can be fitted together?
This article for teachers describes a project which explores thepower of storytelling to convey concepts and ideas to children.
This 100 square jigsaw is written in code. It starts with 1 and ends with 100. Can you build it up?
Can you fit the tangram pieces into the outlines of the chairs?
Can you fit the tangram pieces into the outline of this shape. How would you describe it?
Can you fit the tangram pieces into the outlines of the lobster, yacht and cyclist?
Can you fit the tangram pieces into the outline of the child walking home from school?
How many balls of modelling clay and how many straws does it take to make these skeleton shapes?
Mathematics is the study of patterns. Studying pattern is an opportunity to observe, hypothesise, experiment, discover and create.
How many different ways can you find of fitting five hexagons together? How will you know you have found all the ways?
Can you fit the tangram pieces into the outline of Granma T?
Can you fit the tangram pieces into the outlines of the watering can and man in a boat?
Investigate the number of paths you can take from one vertex to another in these 3D shapes. Is it possible to take an odd number and an even number of paths to the same vertex?
This second article in the series refers to research about levels of development of spatial thinking and the possible influence of instruction.
How can the same pieces of the tangram make this bowl before and after it was chipped? Use the interactivity to try and work out what is going on!
Find your way through the grid starting at 2 and following these operations. What number do you end on?