Filter by: Content type: ALL Problems Articles Games Stage: All Stage 1&2 Stage 2&3 Stage 3&4 Stage 4&5 Challenge level:
What happens when you try and fit the triomino pieces into these two grids?
Can you cover the camel with these pieces?
Use the clues to colour each square.
This problem focuses on Dienes' Logiblocs. What is the same and what is different about these pairs of shapes? Can you describe the shapes in the picture?
How many different rhythms can you make by putting two drums on the wheel?
There are nine teddies in Teddy Town - three red, three blue and three yellow. There are also nine houses, three of each colour. Can you put them on the map of Teddy Town according to the rules?
Can you work out how to balance this equaliser? You can put more than one weight on a hook.
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?
What is the greatest number of counters you can place on the grid below without four of them lying at the corners of a square?
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?
Ben and his mum are planting garlic. Use the interactivity to help you find out how many cloves of garlic they might have had.
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?
Can you shunt the trucks so that the Cattle truck and the Sheep truck change places and the Engine is back on the main line?
What is the best way to shunt these carriages so that each train can continue its journey?
10 space travellers are waiting to board their spaceships. There are two rows of seats in the waiting room. Using the rules, where are they all sitting? Can you find all the possible ways?
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?
Take a rectangle of paper and fold it in half, and half again, to make four smaller rectangles. How many different ways can you fold it up?
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?
Can you find all the different ways of lining up these Cuisenaire rods?
Can you put the 25 coloured tiles into the 5 x 5 square so that no column, no row and no diagonal line have tiles of the same colour in them?
Here are some rods that are different colours. How could I make a dark green rod using yellow and white rods?
Can you put the numbers from 1 to 15 on the circles so that no consecutive numbers lie anywhere along a continuous straight line?
Is it possible to place 2 counters on the 3 by 3 grid so that there is an even number of counters in every row and every column? How about if you have 3 counters or 4 counters or....?
Use the interactivity to help get a feel for this problem and to find out all the possible ways the balls could land.
In this town, houses are built with one room for each person. There are some families of seven people living in the town. In how many different ways can they build their houses?
What is the smallest cuboid that you can put in this box so that you cannot fit another that's the same into it?
Use the interactivity to find all the different right-angled triangles you can make by just moving one corner of the starting triangle.
Have a go at this well-known challenge. Can you swap the frogs and toads in as few slides and jumps as possible?
The idea of this game is to add or subtract the two numbers on the dice and cover the result on the grid, trying to get a line of three. Are there some numbers that are good to aim for?
How many different triangles can you draw on the dotty grid which each have one dot in the middle?
How many ways can you find to do up all four buttons on my coat? How about if I had five buttons? Six ...?
How many DIFFERENT quadrilaterals can be made by joining the dots on the 8-point circle?
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?
Only one side of a two-slice toaster is working. What is the quickest way to toast both sides of three slices of bread?
Investigate the smallest number of moves it takes to turn these mats upside-down if you can only turn exactly three at a time.
Find your way through the grid starting at 2 and following these operations. What number do you end on?
How many different triangles can you make on a circular pegboard that has nine pegs?
How many trains can you make which are the same length as Matt's, using rods that are identical?
Find out what a "fault-free" rectangle is and try to make some of your own.
How many different ways can you find to join three equilateral triangles together? Can you convince us that you have found them all?
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?
A game for 2 people. Take turns placing a counter on the star. You win when you have completed a line of 3 in your colour.
How many models can you find which obey these rules?
Arrange 9 red cubes, 9 blue cubes and 9 yellow cubes into a large 3 by 3 cube. No row or column of cubes must contain two cubes of the same colour.
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.
Kate has eight multilink cubes. She has two red ones, two yellow, two green and two blue. She wants to fit them together to make a cube so that each colour shows on each face just once.
What do the numbers shaded in blue on this hundred square have in common? What do you notice about the pink numbers? How about the shaded numbers in the other squares?
Are all the possible combinations of two shapes included in this set of 27 cards? How do you know?
The NRICH team are always looking for new ways to engage teachers and pupils in problem solving. Here we explain the thinking behind maths trails.
An activity making various patterns with 2 x 1 rectangular tiles.