Filter by: Content type: ALL Problems Articles Games Stage: All Stage 1&2 Stage 2&3 Stage 3&4 Stage 4&5 Challenge level:
Can you beat Piggy in this simple dice game? Can you figure out Piggy's strategy, and is there a better one?
Play a dice game of chance
Try out the lottery that is played in a far-away land. What is the chance of winning?
Terry and Ali are playing a game with three balls. Is it fair that Terry wins when the middle ball is red?
Use the interactivity or play this dice game yourself. How could you make it fair?
A simple spinner that is equally likely to land on Red or Black. Useful if tossing a coin, dropping it, and rummaging about on the floor have lost their appeal. Needs a modern browser; if IE then at. . . .
Can you use the numbers on the dice to reach your end of the number line before your partner beats you?
Use this animation to experiment with lotteries. Choose how many balls to match, how many are in the carousel, and how many draws to make at once.
A tool for generating random integers.
Play this well-known game against the computer where each player is equally likely to choose scissors, paper or rock. Why not try the variations too?
There are three versions of this challenge. The idea is to change the colour of all the spots on the grid. Can you do it in fewer throws of the dice?
How many triangles can you make using sticks that are 3cm, 4cm and 5cm long?
A game for two people, or play online. Given a target number, say 23, and a range of numbers to choose from, say 1-4, players take it in turns to add to the running total to hit their target.
A game for 2 people that can be played on line or with pens and paper. Combine your knowledege of coordinates with your skills of strategic thinking.
If you can post the triangle with either the blue or yellow colour face up, how many ways can it be posted altogether?
A game to be played against the computer, or in groups. Pick a 7-digit number. A random digit is generated. What must you subract to remove the digit from your number? the first to zero wins.
Try to stop your opponent from being able to split the piles of counters into unequal numbers. Can you find a strategy?
Three beads are threaded on a circular wire and are coloured either red or blue. Can you find all four different combinations?
An interactive game for 1 person. You are given a rectangle with 50 squares on it. Roll the dice to get a percentage between 2 and 100. How many squares is this? Keep going until you get 100. . . .
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?
An interactive game to be played on your own or with friends. Imagine you are having a party. Each person takes it in turns to stand behind the chair where they will get the most chocolate.
What shaped overlaps can you make with two circles which are the same size? What shapes are 'left over'? What shapes can you make when the circles are different sizes?
Use the information about Sally and her brother to find out how many children there are in the Brown family.
Exchange the positions of the two sets of counters in the least possible number of moves
Make one big triangle so the numbers that touch on the small triangles add to 10. You could use the interactivity to help you.
Starting with the number 180, take away 9 again and again, joining up the dots as you go. Watch out - don't join all the dots!
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?
Move just three of the circles so that the triangle faces in the opposite direction.
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?
Use the Cuisenaire rods environment to investigate ratio. Can you find pairs of rods in the ratio 3:2? How about 9:6?
Take it in turns to make a triangle on the pegboard. Can you block your opponent?
Choose the size of your pegboard and the shapes you can make. Can you work out the strategies needed to block your opponent?
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 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?
How many right angles can you make using two sticks?
How many different rhythms can you make by putting two drums on the wheel?
A game for 1 person. Can you work out how the dice must be rolled from the start position to the finish? Play on line.
A game for 2 people that everybody knows. You can play with a friend or online. If you play correctly you never lose!
This problem is based on a code using two different prime numbers less than 10. You'll need to multiply them together and shift the alphabet forwards by the result. Can you decipher the code?
What are the coordinates of the coloured dots that mark out the tangram? Try changing the position of the origin. What happens to the coordinates now?
Arrange the four number cards on the grid, according to the rules, to make a diagonal, vertical or horizontal line.
A variant on the game Alquerque
Ahmed has some wooden planks to use for three sides of a rabbit run against the shed. What quadrilaterals would he be able to make with the planks of different lengths?
Place the numbers 1 to 10 in the circles so that each number is the difference between the two numbers just below it.
Our 2008 Advent Calendar has a 'Making Maths' activity for every day in the run-up to Christmas.
Use the clues to colour each square.
Place the numbers 1 to 6 in the circles so that each number is the difference between the two numbers just below it.
Use the sightings of the lion to guess the location of its lair.
Twenty four games for the run-up to Christmas.