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Resources tagged with Generalising similar to Stringy Quads:

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Broad Topics > Using, Applying and Reasoning about Mathematics > Generalising

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Odd Squares

Stage: 2 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

Think of a number, square it and subtract your starting number. Is the number you’re left with odd or even? How do the images help to explain this?

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Circles, Circles

Stage: 1 and 2 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

Here are some arrangements of circles. How many circles would I need to make the next size up for each? Can you create your own arrangement and investigate the number of circles it needs?

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Taking Steps

Stage: 2 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

In each of the pictures the invitation is for you to: Count what you see. Identify how you think the pattern would continue.

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Counting Counters

Stage: 2 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:2 Challenge Level:2

Take a counter and surround it by a ring of other counters that MUST touch two others. How many are needed?

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Dotty Circle

Stage: 2 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3

Watch this film carefully. Can you find a general rule for explaining when the dot will be this same distance from the horizontal axis?

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Cuisenaire Rods

Stage: 2 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:2 Challenge Level:2

These squares have been made from Cuisenaire rods. Can you describe the pattern? What would the next square look like?

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Domino Numbers

Stage: 2 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:2 Challenge Level:2

Can you see why 2 by 2 could be 5? Can you predict what 2 by 10 will be?

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Chess

Stage: 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:2 Challenge Level:2

What would be the smallest number of moves needed to move a Knight from a chess set from one corner to the opposite corner of a 99 by 99 square board?

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Move a Match

Stage: 2 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:2 Challenge Level:2

How can you arrange these 10 matches in four piles so that when you move one match from three of the piles into the fourth, you end up with the same arrangement?

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Number Differences

Stage: 2 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

Place the numbers from 1 to 9 in the squares below so that the difference between joined squares is odd. How many different ways can you do this?

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Cunning Card Trick

Stage: 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3

Delight your friends with this cunning trick! Can you explain how it works?

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Christmas Chocolates

Stage: 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:2 Challenge Level:2

How could Penny, Tom and Matthew work out how many chocolates there are in different sized boxes?

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Triangle Pin-down

Stage: 2 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3

Use the interactivity to investigate what kinds of triangles can be drawn on peg boards with different numbers of pegs.

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Cubes Within Cubes Revisited

Stage: 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3

Imagine starting with one yellow cube and covering it all over with a single layer of red cubes, and then covering that cube with a layer of blue cubes. How many red and blue cubes would you need?

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Picturing Triangle Numbers

Stage: 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

Triangle numbers can be represented by a triangular array of squares. What do you notice about the sum of identical triangle numbers?

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Tourism

Stage: 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3

If you can copy a network without lifting your pen off the paper and without drawing any line twice, then it is traversable. Decide which of these diagrams are traversable.

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Polygonals

Stage: 2 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3

Polygonal numbers are those that are arranged in shapes as they enlarge. Explore the polygonal numbers drawn here.

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Broken Toaster

Stage: 2 Short Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

Only one side of a two-slice toaster is working. What is the quickest way to toast both sides of three slices of bread?

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Cuboid Challenge

Stage: 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:2 Challenge Level:2

What size square corners should be cut from a square piece of paper to make a box with the largest possible volume?

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Games Related to Nim

Stage: 1, 2, 3 and 4

This article for teachers describes several games, found on the site, all of which have a related structure that can be used to develop the skills of strategic planning.

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Squares in Rectangles

Stage: 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:2 Challenge Level:2

A 2 by 3 rectangle contains 8 squares and a 3 by 4 rectangle contains 20 squares. What size rectangle(s) contain(s) exactly 100 squares? Can you find them all?

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Always, Sometimes or Never?

Stage: 1 and 2 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

Are these statements relating to odd and even numbers always true, sometimes true or never true?

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Picturing Square Numbers

Stage: 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

Square numbers can be represented as the sum of consecutive odd numbers. What is the sum of 1 + 3 + ..... + 149 + 151 + 153?

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Is There a Theorem?

Stage: 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:2 Challenge Level:2

Draw a square. A second square of the same size slides around the first always maintaining contact and keeping the same orientation. How far does the dot travel?

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Three Dice

Stage: 2 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

Investigate the sum of the numbers on the top and bottom faces of a line of three dice. What do you notice?

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One, Three, Five, Seven

Stage: 3 and 4 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3

A game for 2 players. Set out 16 counters in rows of 1,3,5 and 7. Players take turns to remove any number of counters from a row. The player left with the last counter looses.

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Make 37

Stage: 2 and 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:2 Challenge Level:2

Four bags contain a large number of 1s, 3s, 5s and 7s. Pick any ten numbers from the bags above so that their total is 37.

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Squares, Squares and More Squares

Stage: 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

Can you dissect a square into: 4, 7, 10, 13... other squares? 6, 9, 12, 15... other squares? 8, 11, 14... other squares?

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Roll over the Dice

Stage: 2 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:2 Challenge Level:2

Watch this video to see how to roll the dice. Now it's your turn! What do you notice about the dice numbers you have recorded?

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Sitting Round the Party Tables

Stage: 1 and 2 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

Sweets are given out to party-goers in a particular way. Investigate the total number of sweets received by people sitting in different positions.

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Up and Down Staircases

Stage: 2 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

One block is needed to make an up-and-down staircase, with one step up and one step down. How many blocks would be needed to build an up-and-down staircase with 5 steps up and 5 steps down?

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Fault-free Rectangles

Stage: 2 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3

Find out what a "fault-free" rectangle is and try to make some of your own.

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Dice Stairs

Stage: 2 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:2 Challenge Level:2

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

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Centred Squares

Stage: 2 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:2 Challenge Level:2

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

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Build it up More

Stage: 2 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:2 Challenge Level:2

This task follows on from Build it Up and takes the ideas into three dimensions!

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The Great Tiling Count

Stage: 2 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

Compare the numbers of particular tiles in one or all of these three designs, inspired by the floor tiles of a church in Cambridge.

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Build it Up

Stage: 2 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

Can you find all the ways to get 15 at the top of this triangle of numbers?

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Magic Constants

Stage: 2 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:2 Challenge Level:2

In a Magic Square all the rows, columns and diagonals add to the 'Magic Constant'. How would you change the magic constant of this square?

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Number Pyramids

Stage: 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

Try entering different sets of numbers in the number pyramids. How does the total at the top change?

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Walking the Squares

Stage: 2 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:2 Challenge Level:2

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

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Painted Cube

Stage: 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3

Imagine a large cube made from small red cubes being dropped into a pot of yellow paint. How many of the small cubes will have yellow paint on their faces?

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Spirals, Spirals

Stage: 2 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

Here are two kinds of spirals for you to explore. What do you notice?

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...on the Wall

Stage: 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:2 Challenge Level:2

Explore the effect of reflecting in two intersecting mirror lines.

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Winning Lines

Stage: 2, 3 and 4

An article for teachers and pupils that encourages you to look at the mathematical properties of similar games.

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Lost Books

Stage: 2 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3

While we were sorting some papers we found 3 strange sheets which seemed to come from small books but there were page numbers at the foot of each page. Did the pages come from the same book?

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Threesomes

Stage: 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

Imagine an infinitely large sheet of square dotty paper on which you can draw triangles of any size you wish (providing each vertex is on a dot). What areas is it/is it not possible to draw?

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Have You Got It?

Stage: 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

Can you explain the strategy for winning this game with any target?

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Nim-7

Stage: 1, 2 and 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

Can you work out how to win this game of Nim? Does it matter if you go first or second?

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Round the Four Dice

Stage: 2 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

This activity involves rounding four-digit numbers to the nearest thousand.

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Sticky Triangles

Stage: 2 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3

Can you continue this pattern of triangles and begin to predict how many sticks are used for each new "layer"?


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