Low Go
Stage: 2 Challenge Level: 
A game for 2 players. Take turns to place a counter so that it occupies one of the lowest possible positions in the grid. The first player to complete a line of 4 wins.
Noughts and Crosses
Stage: 2 Challenge Level:
A game for 2 people that everybody knows. You can play with a friend or online. If you play correctly you never lose!
Square It
Stage: 1, 2, 3 and 4 Challenge Level:
Players take it in turns to choose a dot on the grid. The winner is the first to have four dots that can be joined to form a square.
Match the Matches
Stage: 2 Challenge Level:
Decide which charts and graphs represent the number of goals two football team scored in fifteen matches.
The Twelve Pointed Star Game
Stage: 2 Challenge Level:
Have a go at this game which involves throwing two dice and adding their totals. Where should you place your counters to be more likely to win?
First Connect Three
Stage: 2 and 3 Challenge Level:
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?
Nim-7
Stage: 2 Challenge Level:
Can you work out how to win this game of Nim? Does it matter if you go first or second?
GOT IT
Stage: 2 and 3 Challenge Level:
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.
Tug Harder!
Stage: 2 Challenge Level:
In this game, you can add, subtract, multiply or divide the numbers on the dice. Which will you do so that you get to the end of the number line first?
Diagonal Sums Sudoku
Stage: 2, 3 and 4 Challenge Level:
Solve this Sudoku puzzle whose clues are in the form of sums of the numbers which should appear in diagonal opposite cells.
Winning Lines
Stage: 2, 3 and 4 Challenge Level:
An article for teachers and pupils that encourages you to look at the mathematical properties of similar games.
Intersection Sums Sudoku
Stage: 2, 3 and 4 Challenge Level:
A Sudoku with clues given as sums of entries.
Multiplication Tables - Matching Cards
Stage: 1, 2, 3 and 4 Challenge Level:
Interactive game. Set your own level of challenge, practise your table skills and beat your previous best score.
The Remainders Game
Stage: 2 and 3 Challenge Level:
A game that tests your understanding of remainders.
Factors and Multiples Game
Stage: 2 and 3 Challenge Level:
A game in which players take it in turns to choose a number. Can you block your opponent?
Matching Fractions Decimals Percentages
Stage: 2 and 3 Challenge Level:
An activity based on the game 'Pelmanism'. Set your own level of challenge and beat your own previous best score.
Learning Mathematics Through Games Series: 4. from Strategy Games
Stage: 1, 2 and 3
Basic strategy games are particularly suitable as starting points for investigations. Players instinctively try to discover a winning strategy, and usually the best way to do this is to analyse. . . .
Got It! Article
Stage: 2 and 3
This article gives you a few ideas for understanding the Got It! game and how you might find a winning strategy.
Domino Magic Rectangle
Stage: 2 Challenge Level:
An ordinary set of dominoes can be laid out as a 7 by 4 magic rectangle in which all the spots in all the columns add to 24, while those in the rows add to 42. Try it! Now try the magic square...
Games Related to Nim
Stage: 1, 2, 3 and 4
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.
Traffic Lights
Stage: 2 Challenge Level:
The game uses a 3x3 square board. 2 players take turns to play, either placing a red on an empty square, or changing a red to orange, or orange to green. The player who forms 3 of 1 colour in a line. . . .
Nice and Nasty
Stage: 2 and 3 Challenge Level:
There are nasty versions of this dice game but we'll start with the nice ones...
Making Maths: Birds from an Egg
Stage: 2 Challenge Level:
Can you make the birds from the egg tangram?
Fractions and Coins Game
Stage: 2 Challenge Level:
Work out the fractions to match the cards with the same amount of money.
World of Tan - Concentrating on Coordinates
Stage: 2 Challenge Level:
Can you fit the tangram pieces into the outline of Little Ming playing the board game?
Talking about Maths - 1
Stage: 2, 3, 4 and 5
The first of two articles for teachers explaining how to include talk in maths presentations.
Dice and Spinner Numbers
Stage: 2 Challenge Level:
If you had any number of ordinary dice, what are the possible ways of making their totals 6? What would the product of the dice be each time?
Dominoes
Stage: 2 Challenge Level:
Everthing you have always wanted to do with dominoes! Some of these games are good for practising your mental calculation skills, and some are good for your reasoning skills.
Sliding Puzzle
Stage: 1, 2, 3 and 4 Challenge Level:
The aim of the game is to slide the green square from the top right hand corner to the bottom left hand corner in the least number of moves.
Counters
Stage: 2 Challenge Level:
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?
Achi
Stage: 2 Challenge Level:
This game for two players is played in Ghana, but stones that were marked for this game in the third century AD have been found near Hadrian's Wall in Northern England.
Shunting Puzzle
Stage: 2 Challenge Level:
A shunting puzzle for 1 person. Swop the positions of the counters at the top and bottom of the board.
Using Games in the Classroom
Stage: 2, 3 and 4
Gillian Hatch analyses what goes on when mathematical games are used as a pedagogic device.
Tangram Pictures
Stage: 1, 2 and 3 Challenge Level:
Use the tangram pieces to make our pictures, or to design some of your own!
Roundabout
Stage: 2 Challenge Level:
This is a game for 2 players. Each player has 4 counters each, and wins by blocking their opponent's counters. A good follow-on from two stones.
Sprouts
Stage: 2 Challenge Level:
A game for 2 people. Take turns joining two dots, until your opponent is unable to move.
Tricky Track
Stage: 2 Challenge Level:
In this game you throw two dice and find their total, then move the appropriate counter to the right. Which counter reaches the purple box first? Is this what you would expect?
Twinkle Twinkle
Stage: 2 Challenge Level:
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.
Pumpkin Patch
Stage: 2 Challenge Level:
A game for 2 players based on a game from the Somali people of Africa. The first player to pick all the other's pumpkins is the winner.
Endless Noughts and Crosses
Stage: 2 Challenge Level:
An extension of noughts and crosses in which the grid is enlarged and the length of the winning line can to altered to 3, 4 or 5.
Odds and Threes
Stage: 2 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.
Diagonal Dodge
Stage: 2 and 3 Challenge Level:
A game for 2 players. Can be played online. One player has 1 red counter, the other has 4 blue. The red counter needs to reach the other side, and the blue needs to trap the red.
Polo Square
Stage: 2 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.
Jumping Reindeer
Stage: 2 Challenge Level:
A game for 1 person to develop stategy and shape and space awareness. 12 counters are placed on a board. Counters are removed one at a time. The aim is to be left with only 1 counter.
Daisy
Stage: 2 Challenge Level:
A game for 2 players which can be played on line. Draw a daisy with at least 5 petals. Shade 1 or 2 petals next to each other. The winner shades the last petal.
Going for Games
Stage: 1 and 2
In this article for teachers, Liz Woodham describes the criteria she uses to choose mathematical games for the classroom and shares some examples from NRICH.
Copyright © 2007. University of Cambridge. All rights reserved.
NRICH is part of the family of activities in the Millennium Mathematics Project, which also includes the Plus and Motivate sites.
email: nrich@damtp.cam.ac.uk
