Filter by: Content type: ALL Problems Articles Games Stage: All Stage 1&2 Stage 2&3 Stage 3&4 Stage 4&5 Challenge level:
Arrange the numbers 1 to 6 in each set of circles below. The sum of each side of the triangle should equal the number in its centre.
You have 5 darts and your target score is 44. How many different ways could you score 44?
You have two egg timers. One takes 4 minutes exactly to empty and the other takes 7 minutes. What times in whole minutes can you measure and how?
Arrange eight of the numbers between 1 and 9 in the Polo Square below so that each side adds to the same total.
Can you put plus signs in so this is true? 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 = 99 How many ways can you do it?
Winifred Wytsh bought a box each of jelly babies, milk jelly bears, yellow jelly bees and jelly belly beans. In how many different ways could she make a jolly jelly feast with 32 legs?
Zumf makes spectacles for the residents of the planet Zargon, who have either 3 eyes or 4 eyes. How many lenses will Zumf need to make all the different orders for 9 families?
On a farm there were some hens and sheep. Altogether there were 8 heads and 22 feet. How many hens were there?
In this game for two players, the idea is to take it in turns to choose 1, 3, 5 or 7. The winner is the first to make the total 37.
In Sam and Jill's garden there are two sorts of ladybirds with 7 spots or 4 spots. What numbers of total spots can you make?
Woof is a big dog. Yap is a little dog. Emma has 16 dog biscuits to give to the two dogs. She gave Woof 4 more biscuits than Yap. How many biscuits did each dog get?
Can you work out how many flowers there will be on the Amazing Splitting Plant after it has been growing for six weeks?
Fill in the missing numbers so that adding each pair of corner numbers gives you the number between them (in the box).
The clockmaker's wife cut up his birthday cake to look like a clock face. Can you work out who received each piece?
This magic square has operations written in it, to make it into a maze. Start wherever you like, go through every cell and go out a total of 15!
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 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.
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?
There are 4 jugs which hold 9 litres, 7 litres, 4 litres and 2 litres. Find a way to pour 9 litres of drink from one jug to another until you are left with exactly 3 litres in three of the jugs.
Using the statements, can you work out how many of each type of rabbit there are in these pens?
In this calculation, the box represents a missing digit. What could the digit be? What would the solution be in each case?
There were 22 legs creeping across the web. How many flies? How many spiders?
Can you arrange 5 different digits (from 0 - 9) in the cross in the way described?
Claire thinks she has the most sports cards in her album. "I have 12 pages with 2 cards on each page", says Claire. Ross counts his cards. "No! I have 3 cards on each of my pages and there are. . . .
This problem is based on the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Investigate the different numbers of people and rats there could have been if you know how many legs there are altogether!
Can you find all the ways to get 15 at the top of this triangle of numbers?
This task follows on from Build it Up and takes the ideas into three dimensions!
This challenge focuses on finding the sum and difference of pairs of two-digit numbers.
Find the sum and difference between a pair of two-digit numbers. Now find the sum and difference between the sum and difference! What happens?
This challenge is about finding the difference between numbers which have the same tens digit.
There are three baskets, a brown one, a red one and a pink one, holding a total of 10 eggs. Can you use the information given to find out how many eggs are in each basket?
Cherri, Saxon, Mel and Paul are friends. They are all different ages. Can you find out the age of each friend using the information?
Are these domino games fair? Can you explain why or why not?
Use your logical-thinking skills to deduce how much Dan's crisps and ice-cream cost altogether.
These caterpillars have 16 parts. What different shapes do they make if each part lies in the small squares of a 4 by 4 square?
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?
Well now, what would happen if we lost all the nines in our number system? Have a go at writing the numbers out in this way and have a look at the multiplications table.
A group of children are using measuring cylinders but they lose the labels. Can you help relabel them?
Use your logical reasoning to work out how many cows and how many sheep there are in each field.
Place the digits 1 to 9 into the circles so that each side of the triangle adds to the same total.
Noah saw 12 legs walk by into the Ark. How many creatures did he see?
A game for 2 people. Use your skills of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division to blast the asteroids.
Throw the dice and decide whether to double or halve the number. Will you be the first to reach the target?
Annie cut this numbered cake into 3 pieces with 3 cuts so that the numbers on each piece added to the same total. Where were the cuts and what fraction of the whole cake was each piece?
What do you notice about the date 03.06.09? Or 08.01.09? This challenge invites you to investigate some interesting dates yourself.
Look carefully at the numbers. What do you notice? Can you make another square using the numbers 1 to 16, that displays the same properties?
Find out what a Deca Tree is and then work out how many leaves there will be after the woodcutter has cut off a trunk, a branch, a twig and a leaf.
Can you design a new shape for the twenty-eight squares and arrange the numbers in a logical way? What patterns do you notice?
Add the sum of the squares of four numbers between 10 and 20 to the sum of the squares of three numbers less than 6 to make the square of another, larger, number.
This is an adding game for two players.