The Exploring Our Number System pathway on wild.maths.org is filled with starting points to stimulate students' creativity. We hope students will be playful, pose their own questions, and make some unexpected discoveries.
The collection of related NRICH tasks below are ideal for teachers who want to promote creativity in the classroom. They are designed for classroom use, with accompanying Teachers' Notes and Resources.
Factors and multiples game
A game in which players take it in turns to choose a number. Can you block your opponent?
The remainders game
Play this game and see if you can figure out the computer's chosen number.
Dozens
Can you select the missing digit(s) to find the largest multiple?
Got it
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.
Divisibility tests
Charlie's delightful machine
Here is a machine with four coloured lights. Can you develop a strategy to work out the rules controlling each light?
What numbers can we make?
Imagine we have four bags containing a large number of 1s, 4s, 7s and 10s. What numbers can we make?
Combining lengths
American billions
How much can we spend?
Always a multiple?
Reversals
Legs eleven
Take three from five
Caroline and James pick sets of five numbers. Charlie tries to find three that add together to make a multiple of three. Can they stop him?
Stars
Product Sudoku
The clues for this Sudoku are the product of the numbers in adjacent squares.
Weights
Differences
Factorising with multilink
Puzzling place value