Resources tagged with Working systematically similar to Little Boxes:
Other tags that relate to Little Boxes
Investigations. Addition & subtraction. Working systematically. Cubes & cuboids. Compound transformations. Practical Activity. Interactivities. Tangram. Combinations. Visualising.There are 343 results
Broad Topics > Using, Applying and Reasoning about Mathematics > Working systematically
Sticks and Triangles
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
Using different numbers of sticks, how many different triangles are you able to make? Can you make any rules about the numbers of sticks that make the most triangles?
Knight's Swap
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
Swap the stars with the moons, using only knights' moves (as on a chess board). What is the smallest number of moves possible?
Making Cuboids
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
Let's say you can only use two different lengths - 2 units and 4 units. Using just these 2 lengths as the edges how many different cuboids can you make?
Two on Five
Age 5 to 11 Challenge Level:
Take 5 cubes of one colour and 2 of another colour. How many different ways can you join them if the 5 must touch the table and the 2 must not touch the table?
Cereal Packets
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
How can you put five cereal packets together to make different shapes if you must put them face-to-face?
Map Folding
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
Take a rectangle of paper and fold it in half, and half again, to make four smaller rectangles. How many different ways can you fold it up?
Cuboid-in-a-box
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
What is the smallest cuboid that you can put in this box so that you cannot fit another that's the same into it?
Creating Cubes
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
Arrange 9 red cubes, 9 blue cubes and 9 yellow cubes into a large 3 by 3 cube. No row or column of cubes must contain two cubes of the same colour.
Celtic Knot
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
Building up a simple Celtic knot. Try the interactivity or download the cards or have a go on squared paper.
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?
Waiting for Blast Off
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
10 space travellers are waiting to board their spaceships. There are two rows of seats in the waiting room. Using the rules, where are they all sitting? Can you find all the possible ways?
Putting Two and Two Together
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
In how many ways can you fit two of these yellow triangles together? Can you predict the number of ways two blue triangles can be fitted together?
Cover the Tray
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
These practical challenges are all about making a 'tray' and covering it with paper.
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?
Single Track
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
What is the best way to shunt these carriages so that each train can continue its journey?
Shunting Puzzle
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
Can you shunt the trucks so that the Cattle truck and the Sheep truck change places and the Engine is back on the main line?
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.
Three Sets of Cubes, Two Surfaces
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
How many models can you find which obey these rules?
Counting Cards
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
A magician took a suit of thirteen cards and held them in his hand face down. Every card he revealed had the same value as the one he had just finished spelling. How did this work?
Counters
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
Hover your mouse over the counters to see which ones will be removed. Click to remove them. The winner is the last one to remove a counter. How you can make sure you win?
Four Colours
Age 5 to 11 Challenge Level:
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.
Two by One
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
An activity making various patterns with 2 x 1 rectangular tiles.
Tetrafit
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
A tetromino is made up of four squares joined edge to edge. Can this tetromino, together with 15 copies of itself, be used to cover an eight by eight chessboard?
Red Even
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
You have 4 red and 5 blue counters. How many ways can they be placed on a 3 by 3 grid so that all the rows columns and diagonals have an even number of red counters?
A Square of Numbers
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
Can you put the numbers 1 to 8 into the circles so that the four calculations are correct?
One to Fifteen
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
Can you put the numbers from 1 to 15 on the circles so that no consecutive numbers lie anywhere along a continuous straight line?
Quadrilaterals
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
How many DIFFERENT quadrilaterals can be made by joining the dots on the 8-point circle?
Egyptian Rope
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
The ancient Egyptians were said to make right-angled triangles using a rope with twelve equal sections divided by knots. What other triangles could you make if you had a rope like this?
Paw Prints
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
A dog is looking for a good place to bury his bone. Can you work out where he started and ended in each case? What possible routes could he have taken?
Shaping Up
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
Are all the possible combinations of two shapes included in this set of 27 cards? How do you know?
Arrangements
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
Is it possible to place 2 counters on the 3 by 3 grid so that there is an even number of counters in every row and every column? How about if you have 3 counters or 4 counters or....?
Folded Number Line
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
When I fold a 0-20 number line, I end up with 'stacks' of numbers on top of each other. These challenges involve varying the length of the number line and investigating the 'stack totals'.
Combining Cuisenaire
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
Can you find all the different ways of lining up these Cuisenaire rods?
Ladybird Box
Age 5 to 11 Challenge Level:
Place six toy ladybirds into the box so that there are two ladybirds in every column and every row.
Painting Possibilities
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
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. . . .
Hexpentas
Age 5 to 11 Challenge Level:
How many different ways can you find of fitting five hexagons together? How will you know you have found all the ways?
Broken Toaster
Age 7 to 11 Short Challenge Level:
Only one side of a two-slice toaster is working. What is the quickest way to toast both sides of three slices of bread?
Ice Cream
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
You cannot choose a selection of ice cream flavours that includes totally what someone has already chosen. Have a go and find all the different ways in which seven children can have ice cream.
Square Corners
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
What is the greatest number of counters you can place on the grid below without four of them lying at the corners of a square?
The Third Dimension
Age 5 to 11 Challenge Level:
Here are four cubes joined together. How many other arrangements of four cubes can you find? Can you draw them on dotty paper?
Code Breaker
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
This problem is based on a code using two different prime numbers less than 10. You'll need to multiply them together and shift the alphabet forwards by the result. Can you decipher the code?
Bunny Hop
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
What is the smallest number of jumps needed before the white rabbits and the grey rabbits can continue along their path?
Crack the Code
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
The Zargoes use almost the same alphabet as English. What does this birthday message say?
Team Scream
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
Seven friends went to a fun fair with lots of scary rides. They decided to pair up for rides until each friend had ridden once with each of the others. What was the total number rides?
Seating Arrangements
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
Sitting around a table are three girls and three boys. Use the clues to work out were each person is sitting.
Ancient Runes
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
The Vikings communicated in writing by making simple scratches on wood or stones called runes. Can you work out how their code works using the table of the alphabet?
Pasta Timing
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
Nina must cook some pasta for 15 minutes but she only has a 7-minute sand-timer and an 11-minute sand-timer. How can she use these timers to measure exactly 15 minutes?
Difference
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
Place the numbers 1 to 10 in the circles so that each number is the difference between the two numbers just below it.
This Pied Piper of Hamelin
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
Investigate the different numbers of people and rats there could have been if you know how many legs there are altogether!
NRICH is part of the family of activities in the Millennium Mathematics Project.