Being Curious is part of our Developing Mathematical Mindsets - Primary Teachers collection.
In Nurturing Students' Curiosity, we offer you support and advice on how to encourage your learners to be curious mathematicians.
All humans are naturally curious, and good mathematicians get excited by new ideas and are keen to explore and investigate them. As teachers, we want to nurture our learners' mathematical curiosity so they grow into creative, flexible problem-solvers. One way to nurture this curiosity is by providing the right hook to draw learners in.
We hope that the problems below will exploit learners' natural curiosity and provoke them to ask good mathematical questions.
You can browse through the Number, Measures, Geometry or Statistics collections, or scroll down to see the full set of problems below.
Being curious - Primary measures
Being curious - Primary number
Being curious - Primary geometry
Being curious - Primary statistics
Shaping it
If the world were a village
This activity is based on data in the book 'If the World Were a Village'. How will you represent your chosen data for maximum effect?
Five steps to 50
Next-door numbers
Eightness of eight
Digit addition
Try out this number trick. What happens with different starting numbers? What do you notice?
Light the lights
Investigate which numbers make these lights come on. What is the smallest number you can find that lights up all the lights?
Colouring triangles
Explore ways of colouring this set of triangles. Can you make symmetrical patterns?
Chain of changes
Arrange the shapes in a line so that you change either colour or shape in the next piece along. Can you find several ways to start with a blue triangle and end with a red circle?
Ring a ring of numbers
Little man
More numbers in the ring
Subtraction surprise
Statement snap
Tumbling down
Watch this animation. What do you see? Can you explain why this happens?
Triangle transformation
Fruity totals
In this interactivity each fruit has a hidden value. Can you deduce what each one is worth?
The Number Jumbler
The Number Jumbler can always work out your chosen symbol. Can you work out how?
More Dicey operations
In these multiplication and division games, you'll need to think strategically to get closest to the target.
Dicey operations
In these addition and subtraction games, you'll need to think strategically to get closest to the target.
Consecutive numbers
An investigation involving adding and subtracting sets of consecutive numbers. Lots to find out, lots to explore.
Your number is...
Number differences
Brush loads
How can you arrange the 5 cubes so that you need the smallest number of Brush Loads of paint to cover them? Try with other numbers of cubes as well.
Nice or nasty
There are nasty versions of this dice game but we'll start with the nice ones...
Three neighbours
Take three consecutive numbers and add them together. What do you notice?
Pouring problem
What do you think is going to happen in this video clip? Are you surprised?
Two clocks
These clocks have only one hand, but can you work out what time they are showing from the information?
Curious number
Can you order the digits from 1-3 to make a number which is divisible by 3 so when the last digit is removed it becomes a 2-figure number divisible by 2, and so on?