Filter by: Content type: ALL Problems Articles Games Stage: All Stage 1&2 Stage 2&3 Stage 3&4 Stage 4&5 Challenge level:
During the third hour after midnight the hands on a clock point in the same direction (so one hand is over the top of the other). At what time, to the nearest second, does this happen?
Time for a little mathemagic! Choose any five cards from a pack and show four of them to your partner. How can they work out the fifth?
Can you order pictures of the development of a frog from frogspawn and of a bean seed growing into a plant?
Just four procedures were used to produce a design. How was it done? Can you be systematic and elegant so that someone can follow your logic?
Can you recreate these designs? What are the basic units? What movement is required between each unit? Some elegant use of procedures will help - variables not essential.
Pentagram Pylons - can you elegantly recreate them? Or, the European flag in LOGO - what poses the greater problem?
Make your own double-sided magic square. But can you complete both sides once you've made the pieces?
Can you use your powers of logic and deduction to work out the missing information in these sporty situations?
Remember that you want someone following behind you to see where you went. Can yo work out how these patterns were created and recreate them?
Alice's mum needs to go to each child's house just once and then back home again. How many different routes are there? Use the information to find out how long each road is on the route she took.
Explore this how this program produces the sequences it does. What are you controlling when you change the values of the variables?
Four small numbers give the clue to the contents of the four surrounding cells.
A particular technique for solving Sudoku puzzles, known as "naked pair", is explained in this easy-to-read article.
Stuart's watch loses two minutes every hour. Adam's watch gains one minute every hour. Use the information to work out what time (the real time) they arrived at the airport.
On a digital clock showing 24 hour time, over a whole day, how many times does a 5 appear? Is it the same number for a 12 hour clock over a whole day?
On a digital 24 hour clock, at certain times, all the digits are consecutive. How many times like this are there between midnight and 7 a.m.?
An extra constraint means this Sudoku requires you to think in diagonals as well as horizontal and vertical lines and boxes of nine.
Problem solving is at the heart of the NRICH site. All the problems give learners opportunities to learn, develop or use mathematical concepts and skills. Read here for more information.
A student in a maths class was trying to get some information from her teacher. She was given some clues and then the teacher ended by saying, "Well, how old are they?"
Solve this Sudoku puzzle whose clues are in the form of sums of the numbers which should appear in diagonal opposite cells.
Countries from across the world competed in a sports tournament. Can you devise an efficient strategy to work out the order in which they finished?
Can you find which shapes you need to put into the grid to make the totals at the end of each row and the bottom of each column?
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?
You have been given nine weights, one of which is slightly heavier than the rest. Can you work out which weight is heavier in just two weighings of the balance?
My cousin was 24 years old on Friday April 5th in 1974. On what day of the week was she born?
Move your counters through this snake of cards and see how far you can go. Are you surprised by where you end up?
60 pieces and a challenge. What can you make and how many of the pieces can you use creating skeleton polyhedra?
Find the values of the nine letters in the sum: FOOT + BALL = GAME
Find the smallest whole number which, when mutiplied by 7, gives a product consisting entirely of ones.
This Sudoku combines all four arithmetic operations.
If you take a three by three square on a 1-10 addition square and multiply the diagonally opposite numbers together, what is the difference between these products. Why?
Each clue number in this sudoku is the product of the two numbers in adjacent cells.
A cinema has 100 seats. Show how it is possible to sell exactly 100 tickets and take exactly £100 if the prices are £10 for adults, 50p for pensioners and 10p for children.
This pair of linked Sudokus matches letters with numbers and hides a seasonal greeting. Can you find it?
Two sudokus in one. Challenge yourself to make the necessary connections.
Can you arrange the numbers 1 to 17 in a row so that each adjacent pair adds up to a square number?
Arrange the digits 1, 1, 2, 2, 3 and 3 so that between the two 1's there is one digit, between the two 2's there are two digits, and between the two 3's there are three digits.
The letters in the following addition sum represent the digits 1 ... 9. If A=3 and D=2, what number is represented by "CAYLEY"?
The letters of the word ABACUS have been arranged in the shape of a triangle. How many different ways can you find to read the word ABACUS from this triangular pattern?
How many solutions can you find to this sum? Each of the different letters stands for a different number.
Can you find six numbers to go in the Daisy from which you can make all the numbers from 1 to a number bigger than 25?
In this Sudoku, there are three coloured "islands" in the 9x9 grid. Within each "island" EVERY group of nine cells that form a 3x3 square must contain the numbers 1 through 9.
Each of the main diagonals of this sudoku must contain the numbers 1 to 9 and each rectangle width the numbers 1 to 4.
A Sudoku with clues as ratios.
This challenge extends the Plants investigation so now four or more children are involved.
This challenging activity involves finding different ways to distribute fifteen items among four sets, when the sets must include three, four, five and six items.
There is a long tradition of creating mazes throughout history and across the world. This article gives details of mazes you can visit and those that you can tackle on paper.
This Sudoku puzzle can be solved with the help of small clue-numbers on the border lines between pairs of neighbouring squares of the grid.
A Sudoku that uses transformations as supporting clues.
This Sudoku requires you to do some working backwards before working forwards.