Filter by: Content type: ALL Problems Articles Games Stage: All Stage 1&2 Stage 2&3 Stage 3&4 Stage 4&5 Challenge level:
Arrange eight of the numbers between 1 and 9 in the Polo Square below so that each side adds to the same total.
Look carefully at the numbers. What do you notice? Can you make another square using the numbers 1 to 16, that displays the same properties?
Can you put plus signs in so this is true? 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 = 99 How many ways can you do it?
Winifred Wytsh bought a box each of jelly babies, milk jelly bears, yellow jelly bees and jelly belly beans. In how many different ways could she make a jolly jelly feast with 32 legs?
You have two egg timers. One takes 4 minutes exactly to empty and the other takes 7 minutes. What times in whole minutes can you measure and how?
Can you arrange 5 different digits (from 0 - 9) in the cross in the way described?
You have 5 darts and your target score is 44. How many different ways could you score 44?
Cherri, Saxon, Mel and Paul are friends. They are all different ages. Can you find out the age of each friend using the information?
There are 44 people coming to a dinner party. There are 15 square tables that seat 4 people. Find a way to seat the 44 people using all 15 tables, with no empty places.
Using the statements, can you work out how many of each type of rabbit there are in these pens?
Place the numbers 1 to 8 in the circles so that no consecutive numbers are joined by a line.
There are 4 jugs which hold 9 litres, 7 litres, 4 litres and 2 litres. Find a way to pour 9 litres of drink from one jug to another until you are left with exactly 3 litres in three of the jugs.
This problem is based on the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Investigate the different numbers of people and rats there could have been if you know how many legs there are altogether!
How could you put eight beanbags in the hoops so that there are four in the blue hoop, five in the red and six in the yellow? Can you find all the ways of doing this?
Exactly 195 digits have been used to number the pages in a book. How many pages does the book have?
In how many ways could Mrs Beeswax put ten coins into her three puddings so that each pudding ended up with at least two coins?
This magic square has operations written in it, to make it into a maze. Start wherever you like, go through every cell and go out a total of 15!
There are 78 prisoners in a square cell block of twelve cells. The clever prison warder arranged them so there were 25 along each wall of the prison block. How did he do it?
Zumf makes spectacles for the residents of the planet Zargon, who have either 3 eyes or 4 eyes. How many lenses will Zumf need to make all the different orders for 9 families?
In Sam and Jill's garden there are two sorts of ladybirds with 7 spots or 4 spots. What numbers of total spots can you make?
There are to be 6 homes built on a new development site. They could be semi-detached, detached or terraced houses. How many different combinations of these can you find?
In this problem it is not the squares that jump, you do the jumping! The idea is to go round the track in as few jumps as possible.
Start with three pairs of socks. Now mix them up so that no mismatched pair is the same as another mismatched pair. Is there more than one way to do it?
These activities focus on finding all possible solutions so working in a systematic way will ensure none are left out.
A merchant brings four bars of gold to a jeweller. How can the jeweller use the scales just twice to identify the lighter, fake bar?
These are the faces of Will, Lil, Bill, Phil and Jill. Use the clues to work out which name goes with each face.
El Crico the cricket has to cross a square patio to get home. He can jump the length of one tile, two tiles and three tiles. Can you find a path that would get El Crico home in three jumps?
If we had 16 light bars which digital numbers could we make? How will you know you've found them all?
What do the digits in the number fifteen add up to? How many other numbers have digits with the same total but no zeros?
Tim's class collected data about all their pets. Can you put the animal names under each column in the block graph using the information?
Chandra, Jane, Terry and Harry ordered their lunches from the sandwich shop. Use the information below to find out who ordered each sandwich.
Alice and Brian are snails who live on a wall and can only travel along the cracks. Alice wants to go to see Brian. How far is the shortest route along the cracks? Is there more than one way to go?
Make a pair of cubes that can be moved to show all the days of the month from the 1st to the 31st.
Find your way through the grid starting at 2 and following these operations. What number do you end on?
Investigate the different numbers of people and rats there could have been if you know how many legs there are altogether!
Lolla bought a balloon at the circus. She gave the clown six coins to pay for it. What could Lolla have paid for the balloon?
Nina must cook some pasta for 15 minutes but she only has a 7-minute sand-timer and an 11-minute sand-timer. How can she use these timers to measure exactly 15 minutes?
Can you make square numbers by adding two prime numbers together?
Ten cards are put into five envelopes so that there are two cards in each envelope. The sum of the numbers inside it is written on each envelope. What numbers could be inside the envelopes?
This challenge is to design different step arrangements, which must go along a distance of 6 on the steps and must end up at 6 high.
Add the sum of the squares of four numbers between 10 and 20 to the sum of the squares of three numbers less than 6 to make the square of another, larger, number.
Find the product of the numbers on the routes from A to B. Which route has the smallest product? Which the largest?
The planet of Vuvv has seven moons. Can you work out how long it is between each super-eclipse?
Imagine that the puzzle pieces of a jigsaw are roughly a rectangular shape and all the same size. How many different puzzle pieces could there be?
These activities focus on finding all possible solutions so if you work in a systematic way, you won't leave any out.
In the planet system of Octa the planets are arranged in the shape of an octahedron. How many different routes could be taken to get from Planet A to Planet Zargon?
Investigate the different ways you could split up these rooms so that you have double the number.
Suppose we allow ourselves to use three numbers less than 10 and multiply them together. How many different products can you find? How do you know you've got them all?