Working backwards can be a very useful problem-solving skill. These activities lend themselves to being tackled in this way.
This collection is one of our Primary Curriculum collections - tasks that are grouped by topic.
Nim-7
Junior frogs
Would you rather?
Would you rather: Have 10% of £5 or 75% of 80p? Be given 60% of 2 pizzas or 26% of 5 pizzas?
Multiplication squares
Can you work out the arrangement of the digits in the square so that the given products are correct? The numbers 1 - 9 may be used once and once only.
What's in the box?
This big box multiplies anything that goes inside it by the same number. If you know the numbers that come out, what multiplication might be going on in the box?
First connect three
Nice or nasty
Missing multipliers
Play to 37
Maze 100
Mystery matrix
All the digits
This multiplication uses each of the digits 0 - 9 once and once only. Using the information given, can you replace the stars in the calculation with figures?
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.
Andy's marbles
Andy had a big bag of marbles but unfortunately the bottom of it split and all the marbles spilled out. Use the information to find out how many there were in the bag originally.
Counting cards