National Young Mathematicians' Award Activities

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Favourite

Growing Garlic

Age

5 to 11

Challenge level

Ben and his mum are planting garlic. Can you find out how many cloves of garlic they might have had?

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Favourite

Button-Up

Age

5 to 7

Challenge level

My coat has three buttons. How many ways can you find to do up all the buttons?

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Favourite

The Amazing Splitting Plant

Age

5 to 7

Challenge level

Can you work out how many flowers there will be on the Amazing Splitting Plant after it has been growing for six weeks?

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Favourite

The Brown Family

Age

5 to 7

Challenge level

Use the information about Sally and her brother to find out how many children there are in the Brown family.

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Favourite

Lots of Lollies

Age

5 to 7

Challenge level

Frances and Rishi were given a bag of lollies. They shared them out evenly and had one left over. How many lollies could there have been in the bag?

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Favourite

Stop the Clock

Age

5 to 7

Challenge level

This is a game for two players. Can you find out how to be the first to get to 12 o'clock?

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Favourite

Odd times Even

Age

5 to 7

Challenge level

This problem looks at how one example of your choice can show something about the general structure of multiplication.

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Making Pathways

Age

7 to 11

Challenge level

Can you find different ways of creating paths using these paving slabs?

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Jigsaw Pieces

Age

7 to 11

Challenge level

How will you go about finding all the jigsaw pieces that have one peg and one hole?

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Snake Coils

Age

7 to 11

Challenge level

This challenge asks you to imagine a snake coiling on itself.

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Favourite

Six Ten Total

Age

7 to 11

Challenge level

This challenge combines addition, multiplication, perseverance and even proof.

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Favourite

Six Numbered Cubes

Age

7 to 11

Challenge level

This task combines spatial awareness with addition and multiplication.

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Display Boards

Age

7 to 11

Challenge level

Design an arrangement of display boards in the school hall which fits the requirements of different people.

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Open Boxes

Age

7 to 11

Challenge level

Can you work out how many cubes were used to make this open box? What size of open box could you make if you had 112 cubes?

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Centred Squares

Age

7 to 11

Challenge level

This challenge, written for the Young Mathematicians' Award, invites you to explore 'centred squares'.

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Dice Stairs

Age

7 to 11

Challenge level

Can you make dice stairs using the rules stated? How do you know you have all the possible stairs?

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Diagonal in a Spiral

Age

7 to 11

Challenge level

Investigate the totals you get when adding numbers in threes on the diagonal of this pattern.

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Favourite

Button-Up Some More

Age

7 to 11

Challenge level

How many ways can you find to do up all four buttons on my coat? How about if I had five buttons? Six ...?

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Walking the squares

Age

7 to 11

Challenge level

Find a route from the outside to the inside of this square, stepping on as many tiles as possible.

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Dart Target

Age

7 to 11

Challenge level

This task, written for the National Young Mathematicians' Award 2016, invites you to explore the different combinations of scores that you might get on these dart boards.

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This task, written for the National Young Mathematicians' Award 2016, involves open-topped boxes made with interlocking cubes. Explore the number of units of paint that are needed to cover the boxes and the small cubes that would fit inside each one.

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Open Squares

Age

7 to 11

Challenge level

This task, written for the National Young Mathematicians' Award 2016, focuses on 'open squares'. What would the next five open squares look like?

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Favourite

Curious number

Age

7 to 11

Challenge level

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?