Filter by: Content type: ALL Problems Articles Games Stage: All Stage 1&2 Stage 2&3 Stage 3&4 Stage 4&5 Challenge level:
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?
We're excited about this new program for drawing beautiful mathematical designs. Can you work out how we made our first few pictures and, even better, share your most elegant solutions with us?
Try this interactive strategy game for 2
A game for two players. You'll need some counters.
We can cut a small triangle off the corner of a square and then fit the two pieces together. Can you work out how these shapes are made from the two pieces?
What happens when you try and fit the triomino pieces into these two grids?
Exchange the positions of the two sets of counters in the least possible number of moves
What can you see? What do you notice? What questions can you ask?
A game for two players on a large squared space.
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?
If you can post the triangle with either the blue or yellow colour face up, how many ways can it be posted altogether?
This article looks at levels of geometric thinking and the types of activities required to develop this thinking.
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?
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?
How many different ways can you find of fitting five hexagons together? How will you know you have found all the ways?
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.
Can you cover the camel with these pieces?
Can you see why 2 by 2 could be 5? Can you predict what 2 by 10 will be?
I found these clocks in the Arts Centre at the University of Warwick intriguing - do they really need four clocks and what times would be ambiguous with only two or three of them?
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?
This second article in the series refers to research about levels of development of spatial thinking and the possible influence of instruction.
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.
Make one big triangle so the numbers that touch on the small triangles add to 10. You could use the interactivity to help you.
A game for 2 people. Take turns joining two dots, until your opponent is unable to move.
Move just three of the circles so that the triangle faces in the opposite direction.
A variant on the game Alquerque
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!
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.
Can you fit the tangram pieces into the outlines of the candle and sundial?
Can you fit the tangram pieces into the outlines of Mai Ling and Chi Wing?
Which of these dice are right-handed and which are left-handed?
Here are shadows of some 3D shapes. What shapes could have made them?
Investigate how the four L-shapes fit together to make an enlarged L-shape. You could explore this idea with other shapes too.
Can you fit the tangram pieces into the outlines of the watering can and man in a boat?
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.
Where can you put the mirror across the square so that you can still "see" the whole square? How many different positions are possible?
If you split the square into these two pieces, it is possible to fit the pieces together again to make a new shape. How many new shapes can you make?
Use the three triangles to fill these outline shapes. Perhaps you can create some of your own shapes for a friend to fill?
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.
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?
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?
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.
Lyndon Baker describes how the Mobius strip and Euler's law can introduce pupils to the idea of topology.
Imagine a wheel with different markings painted on it at regular intervals. Can you predict the colour of the 18th mark? The 100th mark?