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Resources tagged with Visualising similar to Disappearing Square:

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Muggles Magic

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

You can move the 4 pieces of the jigsaw and fit them into both outlines. Explain what has happened to the missing one unit of area.

Framed

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Seven small rectangular pictures have one inch wide frames. The frames are removed and the pictures are fitted together like a jigsaw to make a rectangle of length 12 inches. Find the dimensions of. . . .

Coloured Edges

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

The whole set of tiles is used to make a square. This has a green and blue border. There are no green or blue tiles anywhere in the square except on this border. How many tiles are there in the set?

Rolling Around

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

A circle rolls around the outside edge of a square so that its circumference always touches the edge of the square. Can you describe the locus of the centre of the circle?

Sprouts

Stage: 2, 3, 4 and 5 Challenge Level:

A game for 2 people. Take turns joining two dots, until your opponent is unable to move.

The Old Goats

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

A rectangular field has two posts with a ring on top of each post. There are two quarrelsome goats and plenty of ropes which you can tie to their collars. How can you secure them so they can't. . . .

Christmas Boxes

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Find all the ways to cut out a 'net' of six squares that can be folded into a cube.

Counting Triangles

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Triangles are formed by joining the vertices of a skeletal cube. How many different types of triangle are there? How many triangles altogether?

Screwed-up

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

A cylindrical helix is just a spiral on a cylinder, like an ordinary spring or the thread on a bolt. If I turn a left-handed helix over (top to bottom) does it become a right handed helix?

All in the Mind

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Imagine you are suspending a cube from one vertex (corner) and allowing it to hang freely. Now imagine you are lowering it into water until it is exactly half submerged. What shape does the surface. . . .

Triangular Tantaliser

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Draw all the possible distinct triangles on a 4 x 4 dotty grid. Convince me that you have all possible triangles.

Isosceles Triangles

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Draw some isosceles triangles with an area of $9$cm$^2$ and a vertex at (20,20). If all the vertices must have whole number coordinates, how many is it possible to draw?

Take Ten

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Is it possible to remove ten unit cubes from a 3 by 3 by 3 cube made from 27 unit cubes so that the surface area of the remaining solid is the same as the surface area of the original 3 by 3 by 3. . . .

Tied Up

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

In a right angled triangular field, three animals are tethered to posts at the midpoint of each side. Each rope is just long enough to allow the animal to reach two adjacent vertices. Only one animal. . . .

An Unusual Shape

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Can you maximise the area available to a grazing goat?

Speeding Boats

Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

Two boats travel up and down a lake. Can you picture where they will cross if you know how fast each boat is travelling?

Conway's Chequerboard Army

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Here is a solitaire type environment for you to experiment with. Which targets can you reach?

Wari

Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

This is a simple version of an ancient game played all over the world. It is also called Mancala. What tactics will increase your chances of winning?

Square Coordinates

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

A tilted square is a square with no horizontal sides. Can you devise a general instruction for the construction of a square when you are given just one of its sides?

Intersecting Circles

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Three circles have a maximum of six intersections with each other. What is the maximum number of intersections that a hundred circles could have?

Dissect

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

It is possible to dissect any square into smaller squares. What is the minimum number of squares a 13 by 13 square can be dissected into?

Painting Cubes

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Imagine you have six different colours of paint. You paint a cube using a different colour for each of the six faces. How many different cubes can be painted using the same set of six colours?

Convex Polygons

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Show that among the interior angles of a convex polygon there cannot be more than three acute angles.

Charting Success

Stage: 3 and 4 Challenge Level:

Can you make sense of the charts and diagrams that are created and used by sports competitors, trainers and statisticians?

Pattern Power

Stage: 1, 2 and 3

Mathematics is the study of patterns. Studying pattern is an opportunity to observe, hypothesise, experiment, discover and create.

Buses

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

A bus route has a total duration of 40 minutes. Every 10 minutes, two buses set out, one from each end. How many buses will one bus meet on its way from one end to the other end?

Flight of the Flibbins

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Blue Flibbins are so jealous of their red partners that they will not leave them on their own with any other bue Flibbin. What is the quickest way of getting the five pairs of Flibbins safely to. . . .

Coordinate Patterns

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Charlie and Alison have been drawing patterns on coordinate grids. Can you picture where the patterns lead?

Bands and Bridges: Bringing Topology Back

Stage: 2 and 3

Lyndon Baker describes how the Mobius strip and Euler's law can introduce pupils to the idea of topology.

You Owe Me Five Farthings, Say the Bells of St Martin's

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Use the interactivity to listen to the bells ringing a pattern. Now it's your turn! Play one of the bells yourself. How do you know when it is your turn to ring?

3D Stacks

Stage: 2 and 3 Challenge Level:

Can you find a way of representing these arrangements of balls?

A Tilted Square

Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

The opposite vertices of a square have coordinates (a,b) and (c,d). What are the coordinates of the other vertices?

Jam

Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

To avoid losing think of another very well known game where the patterns of play are similar.

How Many Dice?

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

A standard die has the numbers 1, 2 and 3 are opposite 6, 5 and 4 respectively so that opposite faces add to 7? If you make standard dice by writing 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 on blank cubes you will find. . . .

Auditorium Steps

Stage: 2 and 3 Challenge Level:

What is the shape of wrapping paper that you would need to completely wrap this model?

More Pebbles

Stage: 2 and 3 Challenge Level:

Have a go at this 3D extension to the Pebbles problem.

Zooming in on the Squares

Stage: 2 and 3

Start with a large square, join the midpoints of its sides, you'll see four right angled triangles. Remove these triangles, a second square is left. Repeat the operation. What happens?

Sea Defences

Stage: 2 and 3 Challenge Level:

These are pictures of the sea defences at New Brighton. Can you work out what a basic shape might be in both images of the sea wall and work out a way they might fit together?

Triangles Within Triangles

Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

Can you find a rule which connects consecutive triangular numbers?

Reflecting Squarely

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

In how many ways can you fit all three pieces together to make shapes with line symmetry?

Königsberg

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Can you cross each of the seven bridges that join the north and south of the river to the two islands, once and once only, without retracing your steps?

Picturing Triangle Numbers

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Triangle numbers can be represented by a triangular array of squares. What do you notice about the sum of identical triangle numbers?

When Will You Pay Me? Say the Bells of Old Bailey

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Use the interactivity to play two of the bells in a pattern. How do you know when it is your turn to ring, and how do you know which bell to ring?

Jam

Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

A game for 2 players

Tetrahedra Tester

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

An irregular tetrahedron is composed of four different triangles. Can such a tetrahedron be constructed where the side lengths are 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 units of length?

Diagonal Dodge

Stage: 2 and 3 Challenge Level:

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.

Konigsberg Plus

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Euler discussed whether or not it was possible to stroll around Koenigsberg crossing each of its seven bridges exactly once. Experiment with different numbers of islands and bridges.

Travelling Salesman

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

A Hamiltonian circuit is a continuous path in a graph that passes through each of the vertices exactly once and returns to the start. How many Hamiltonian circuits can you find in these graphs?

Frogs

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

How many moves does it take to swap over some red and blue frogs? Do you have a method?

Dice, Routes and Pathways

Stage: 1, 2 and 3

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. . . .