Filter by: Content type: ALL Problems Articles Games Stage: All Stage 1&2 Stage 2&3 Stage 3&4 Stage 4&5 Challenge level:
A game for 2 people using a pack of cards Turn over 2 cards and try to make an odd number or a multiple of 3.
Are these domino games fair? Can you explain why or why not?
Exactly 195 digits have been used to number the pages in a book. How many pages does the book have?
Ben’s class were making cutting up number tracks. First they cut them into twos and added up the numbers on each piece. What patterns could they see?
What is the sum of all the three digit whole numbers?
On the planet Vuv there are two sorts of creatures. The Zios have 3 legs and the Zepts have 7 legs. The great planetary explorer Nico counted 52 legs. How many Zios and how many Zepts were there?
There are over sixty different ways of making 24 by adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing all four numbers 4, 6, 6 and 8 (using each number only once). How many can you find?
Place the digits 1 to 9 into the circles so that each side of the triangle adds to the same total.
What do the digits in the number fifteen add up to? How many other numbers have digits with the same total but no zeros?
Fill in the numbers to make the sum of each row, column and diagonal equal to 34. For an extra challenge try the huge American Flag magic square.
Fill in the missing numbers so that adding each pair of corner numbers gives you the number between them (in the box).
Find out what a Deca Tree is and then work out how many leaves there will be after the woodcutter has cut off a trunk, a branch, a twig and a leaf.
Use 4 four times with simple operations so that you get the answer 12. Can you make 15, 16 and 17 too?
The clockmaker's wife cut up his birthday cake to look like a clock face. Can you work out who received each piece?
I throw three dice and get 5, 3 and 2. Add the scores on the three dice. What do you get? Now multiply the scores. What do you notice?
There is a clock-face where the numbers have become all mixed up. Can you find out where all the numbers have got to from these ten statements?
In a square in which the houses are evenly spaced, numbers 3 and 10 are opposite each other. What is the smallest and what is the largest possible number of houses in the square?
The Scot, John Napier, invented these strips about 400 years ago to help calculate multiplication and division. Can you work out how to use Napier's bones to find the answer to these multiplications?
If the numbers 5, 7 and 4 go into this function machine, what numbers will come out?
Put operations signs between the numbers 3 4 5 6 to make the highest possible number and lowest possible number.
Find another number that is one short of a square number and when you double it and add 1, the result is also a square number.
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?
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.
Go through the maze, collecting and losing your money as you go. Which route gives you the highest return? And the lowest?
Peter, Melanie, Amil and Jack received a total of 38 chocolate eggs. Use the information to work out how many eggs each person had.
Tim had nine cards each with a different number from 1 to 9 on it. How could he have put them into three piles so that the total in each pile was 15?
A game for 2 people. Use your skills of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division to blast the asteroids.
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?
Using 3 rods of integer lengths, none longer than 10 units and not using any rod more than once, you can measure all the lengths in whole units from 1 to 10 units. How many ways can you do this?
Susie took cherries out of a bowl by following a certain pattern. How many cherries had there been in the bowl to start with if she was left with 14 single ones?
What is the largest number you can make using the three digits 2, 3 and 4 in any way you like, using any operations you like? You can only use each digit once.
Arrange eight of the numbers between 1 and 9 in the Polo Square below so that each side adds to the same total.
Where can you draw a line on a clock face so that the numbers on both sides have the same total?
Start by putting one million (1 000 000) into the display of your calculator. Can you reduce this to 7 using just the 7 key and add, subtract, multiply, divide and equals as many times as you like?
There are three buckets each of which holds a maximum of 5 litres. Use the clues to work out how much liquid there is in each bucket.
Use your logical-thinking skills to deduce how much Dan's crisps and ice-cream cost altogether.
Arrange three 1s, three 2s and three 3s in this square so that every row, column and diagonal adds to the same total.
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!
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?
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.
A game for 2 or more players with a pack of cards. Practise your skills of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division to hit the target score.
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?
Choose four different digits from 1-9 and put one in each box so that the resulting four two-digit numbers add to a total of 100.
Here are the prices for 1st and 2nd class mail within the UK. You have an unlimited number of each of these stamps. Which stamps would you need to post a parcel weighing 825g?
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?
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!
48 is called an abundant number because it is less than the sum of its factors (without itself). Can you find some more abundant numbers?
Place the numbers from 1 to 9 in the squares below so that the difference between joined squares is odd. How many different ways can you do this?
On a calculator, make 15 by using only the 2 key and any of the four operations keys. How many ways can you find to do it?
Can you draw a continuous line through 16 numbers on this grid so that the total of the numbers you pass through is as high as possible?