3 Blocks Towers
Age 5 to 7
Challenge Level
Take three differently coloured blocks - maybe red, yellow and blue. Make a tower using one of each colour. How many different towers can you make?
4 Dom
Age 5 to 16
Challenge Level
Use these four dominoes to make a square that has the same number of dots on each side.
A City of Towers
Age 5 to 7
Challenge Level
In this town, houses are built with one room for each person. There are some families of seven people living in the town. In how many different ways can they build their houses?
Biscuit Decorations
Age 5 to 7
Challenge Level
Andrew decorated 20 biscuits to take to a party. He lined them up and put icing on every second biscuit and different decorations on other biscuits. How many biscuits weren't decorated?
Butterfly Flowers
Age 5 to 7
Challenge Level
Can you find 2 butterflies to go on each flower so that the numbers on each pair of butterflies adds to the same number as the one on the flower?
Domino Join Up
Age 5 to 7
Challenge Level
Can you arrange fifteen dominoes so that all the touching domino pieces add to 6 and the ends join up? Can you make all the joins add to 7?
Four Colours
Age 5 to 11
Challenge Level
Kate has eight multilink cubes. She has two red ones, two yellow, two green and two blue. She wants to fit them together to make a cube so that each colour shows on each face just once.
Four Triangles Puzzle
Age 5 to 11
Challenge Level
Cut four triangles from a square as shown in the picture. How many different shapes can you make by fitting the four triangles back together?
Incey Wincey Spider
Age 5 to 7
Challenge Level
You'll need two dice to play this game against a partner. Will Incey Wincey make it to the top of the drain pipe or the bottom of the drain pipe first?
Ladybird Box
Age 5 to 11
Challenge Level
Place six toy ladybirds into the box so that there are two ladybirds in every column and every row.
Making Sticks
Age 5 to 7
Challenge Level
Kimie and Sebastian were making sticks from interlocking cubes and lining them up. Can they make their lines the same length? Can they make any other lines?
Missing Middles
Age 5 to 7
Challenge Level
Can you work out the domino pieces which would go in the middle in each case to complete the pattern of these eight sets of three dominoes?
Mixed-up Socks
Age 5 to 7
Challenge Level
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?
Nim-7
Age 5 to 14
Challenge Level
Can you work out how to win this game of Nim? Does it matter if you go first or second?
Number Lines
Age 5 to 7
Challenge Level
A resource to try once children are familiar with number lines, and they have begun to use them for addition. It could be a good way to talk about subtraction. Leah and Tom each have a number line. Can you work out where their counters will land?
Robot Monsters
Age 5 to 7
Challenge Level
Use these head, body and leg pieces to make Robot Monsters which are different heights.
Share Bears
Age 5 to 7
Challenge Level
Yasmin and Zach have some bears to share. Which numbers of bears can they share so that there are none left over?
Skip Counting
Age 5 to 7
Challenge Level
Find the squares that Froggie skips onto to get to the pumpkin patch. She starts on 3 and finishes on 30, but she lands only on a square that has a number 3 more than the square she skips from.
Sort the Street
Age 5 to 7
Challenge Level
Sort the houses in my street into different groups. Can you do it in any other ways?
Tangrams
Age 5 to 11
Challenge Level
Can you make five differently sized squares from the interactive tangram pieces?
Teddy Bear Line-up
Age 5 to 7
Challenge Level
What is the least number of moves you can take to rearrange the bears so that no bear is next to a bear of the same colour?
Teddy Town
Age 5 to 14
Challenge Level
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?
The Third Dimension
Age 5 to 11
Challenge Level
Here are four cubes joined together. How many other arrangements of four cubes can you find? Can you draw them on dotty paper?
Three by Three
Age 5 to 11
Challenge Level
Arrange 3 red, 3 blue and 3 yellow counters into a three-by-three square grid, so that there is only one of each colour in every row and every column
Three Way Mix Up
Age 5 to 11
Challenge Level
Jack has nine tiles. He put them together to make a square so that two tiles of the same colour were not beside each other. Can you find another way to do it?
Two Dice
Age 5 to 7
Challenge Level
Find all the numbers that can be made by adding the dots on two dice.
Two Stones
Age 5 to 18
This game is known as Pong hau k'i in China and Ou-moul-ko-no in Korea. Find a friend to play or try the interactive version online.
Two-digit Targets
Age 5 to 7
Challenge Level
You have a set of the digits from 0 – 9. Can you arrange these in the five boxes to make two-digit numbers as close to the targets as possible?
What Is the Time?
Age 5 to 11
Challenge Level
Can you put these times on the clocks in order? You might like to arrange them in a circle.
What Shape and Colour?
Age 5 to 7
Challenge Level
Can you fill in the empty boxes in the grid with the right shape and colour?
Whose Face?
Age 5 to 11
Challenge Level
These are the faces of Will, Lil, Bill, Phil and Jill. Use the clues to work out which name goes with each face.
NRICH is part of the family of activities in the Millennium Mathematics Project.