Filter by: Content type: ALL Problems Articles Games Stage: All Stage 1&2 Stage 2&3 Stage 3&4 Stage 4&5 Challenge level:
Using the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 once and only once, and the operations x and ÷ once and only once, what is the smallest whole number you can make?
All the girls would like a puzzle each for Christmas and all the boys would like a book each. Solve the riddle to find out how many puzzles and books Santa left.
Using some or all of the operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division and using the digits 3, 3, 8 and 8 each once and only once make an expression equal to 24.
Mr McGregor has a magic potting shed. Overnight, the number of plants in it doubles. He'd like to put the same number of plants in each of three gardens, planting one garden each day. Can he do it?
In 1871 a mathematician called Augustus De Morgan died. De Morgan made a puzzling statement about his age. Can you discover which year De Morgan was born in?
Using only six straight cuts, find a way to make as many pieces of pizza as possible. (The pieces can be different sizes and shapes).
Amy's mum had given her £2.50 to spend. She bought four times as many pens as pencils and was given 40p change. How many of each did she buy?
Factor track is not a race but a game of skill. The idea is to go round the track in as few moves as possible, keeping to the rules.
A shunting puzzle for 1 person. Swop the positions of the counters at the top and bottom of the board.
Fill in the missing numbers so that adding each pair of corner numbers gives you the number between them (in the box).
Fill in the numbers to make the sum of each row, column and diagonal equal to 34. For an extra challenge try the huge American Flag magic square.
There are a number of coins on a table. One quarter of the coins show heads. If I turn over 2 coins, then one third show heads. How many coins are there altogether?
Can you make a cycle of pairs that add to make a square number using all the numbers in the box below, once and once only?
Five numbers added together in pairs produce: 0, 2, 4, 4, 6, 8, 9, 11, 13, 15 What are the five numbers?
Start by putting one million (1 000 000) into the display of your calculator. Can you reduce this to 7 using just the 7 key and add, subtract, multiply, divide and equals as many times as you like?
This cube has ink on each face which leaves marks on paper as it is rolled. Can you work out what is on each face and the route it has taken?
Have a go at this well-known challenge. Can you swap the frogs and toads in as few slides and jumps as possible?
Strike it Out game for an adult and child. Can you stop your partner from being able to go?
Is it possible to draw a 5-pointed star without taking your pencil off the paper? Is it possible to draw a 6-pointed star in the same way without taking your pen off?
Use your addition and subtraction skills, combined with some strategic thinking, to beat your partner at this game.
Can you see how these factor-multiple chains work? Find the chain which contains the smallest possible numbers. How about the largest possible numbers?
A 3 digit number is multiplied by a 2 digit number and the calculation is written out as shown with a digit in place of each of the *'s. Complete the whole multiplication sum.
You have two sets of the digits 0 – 9. Can you arrange these in the five boxes to make four-digit numbers as close to the target numbers as possible?
There are 44 people coming to a dinner party. There are 15 square tables that seat 4 people. Find a way to seat the 44 people using all 15 tables, with no empty places.
Place the digits 1 to 9 into the circles so that each side of the triangle adds to the same total.
There were chews for 2p, mini eggs for 3p, Chocko bars for 5p and lollypops for 7p in the sweet shop. What could each of the children buy with their money?
Work out Tom's number from the answers he gives his friend. He will only answer 'yes' or 'no'.
56 406 is the product of two consecutive numbers. What are these two numbers?
Sam sets up displays of cat food in his shop in triangular stacks. If Felix buys some, then how can Sam arrange the remaining cans in triangular stacks?
Place the numbers 1 to 10 in the circles so that each number is the difference between the two numbers just below it.
The clockmaker's wife cut up his birthday cake to look like a clock face. Can you work out who received each piece?
Katie had a pack of 20 cards numbered from 1 to 20. She arranged the cards into 6 unequal piles where each pile added to the same total. What was the total and how could this be done?
Using the statements, can you work out how many of each type of rabbit there are in these pens?
There are 78 prisoners in a square cell block of twelve cells. The clever prison warder arranged them so there were 25 along each wall of the prison block. How did he do it?
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.
Peter, Melanie, Amil and Jack received a total of 38 chocolate eggs. Use the information to work out how many eggs each person had.
Nine squares with side lengths 1, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 14, 15, and 18 cm can be fitted together to form a rectangle. What are the dimensions of the rectangle?
Can you use the information to find out which cards I have used?
Can you draw a continuous line through 16 numbers on this grid so that the total of the numbers you pass through is as high as possible?
Skippy and Anna are locked in a room in a large castle. The key to that room, and all the other rooms, is a number. The numbers are locked away in a problem. Can you help them to get out?
Can you make the green spot travel through the tube by moving the yellow spot? Could you draw a tube that both spots would follow?
The discs for this game are kept in a flat square box with a square hole for each disc. Use the information to find out how many discs of each colour there are in the box.
Can you guess the colours of the 10 marbles in the bag? Can you develop an effective strategy for reaching 1000 points in the least number of rounds?
Can you number the vertices, edges and faces of a tetrahedron so that the number on each edge is the mean of the numbers on the adjacent vertices and the mean of the numbers on the adjacent faces?
This challenge is to make up YOUR OWN alphanumeric. Each letter represents a digit and where the same letter appears more than once it must represent the same digit each time.
In this problem you have to place four by four magic squares on the faces of a cube so that along each edge of the cube the numbers match.
Can you arrange the digits 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 into three 3-digit numbers such that their total is close to 1500?
On the planet Vuv there are two sorts of creatures. The Zios have 3 legs and the Zepts have 7 legs. The great planetary explorer Nico counted 52 legs. How many Zios and how many Zepts were there?
There are three buckets each of which holds a maximum of 5 litres. Use the clues to work out how much liquid there is in each bucket.
Put operations signs between the numbers 3 4 5 6 to make the highest possible number and lowest possible number.