Other tags that relate to Building with Cubes
Interactivities. Cubes & cuboids. Combinations. Games. Visualising. Interlocking cubes. Investigations. Working systematically. Practical Activity. Tangram.There are 320 results
Broad Topics > Thinking Mathematically > Working systematically
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?
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?
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?
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?
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?
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?
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?
More Transformations on a Pegboard
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
Use the interactivity to find all the different right-angled triangles you can make by just moving one corner of the starting triangle.
Tangram Tangle
Age 5 to 7 Challenge Level:
If you split the square into these two pieces, it is possible to fit the pieces together again to make a new shape. How many new shapes can you make?
Three Sets of Cubes, Two Surfaces
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
How many models can you find which obey these rules?
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?
Triangle Edges
Age 5 to 7 Challenge Level:
How many triangles can you make using sticks that are 3cm, 4cm and 5cm long?
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?
Multilink Cubes
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
If you had 36 cubes, what different cuboids could you make?
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?
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.
Inside Triangles
Age 5 to 7 Challenge Level:
How many different triangles can you draw on the dotty grid which each have one dot in the middle?
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?
Brush Loads
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
How can you arrange the 5 cubes so that you need the smallest number of Brush Loads of paint to cover them? Try with other numbers of cubes as well.
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?
Tessellate the Triominoes
Age 5 to 7 Challenge Level:
What happens when you try and fit the triomino pieces into these two grids?
Three Ball Line Up
Age 5 to 7 Challenge Level:
Use the interactivity to help get a feel for this problem and to find out all the possible ways the balls could land.
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?
Four Triangles Puzzle
Age 5 to 11 Challenge Level:
Cut four triangles from a square as shown in the picture. How many different shapes can you make by fitting the four triangles back together?
Penta Place
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
Penta people, the Pentominoes, always build their houses from five square rooms. I wonder how many different Penta homes you can create?
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?
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.
3 Blocks Towers
Age 5 to 7 Challenge Level:
Take three differently coloured blocks - maybe red, yellow and blue. Make a tower using one of each colour. How many different towers can you make?
How Long Does it Take?
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
How long does it take to brush your teeth? Can you find the matching length of time?
Ordered Ways of Working Lower Primary
Age 5 to 7 Challenge Level:
These activities lend themselves to systematic working in the sense that it helps if you have an ordered approach.
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?
Finding All Possibilities Lower Primary
Age 5 to 7 Challenge Level:
These activities focus on finding all possible solutions so if you work in a systematic way, you won't leave any out.
Matching Time
Age 5 to 7 Challenge Level:
Try this matching game which will help you recognise different ways of saying the same time interval.
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?
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?
Dicey Perimeter, Dicey Area
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
In this game for two players, you throw two dice and find the product. How many shapes can you draw on the grid which have that area or perimeter?
Triangles All Around
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
Can you find all the different triangles on these peg boards, and find their angles?
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.
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?
Finding All Possibilities Lower Primary
Age 5 to 7 Challenge Level:
These activities focus on finding all possible solutions so working in a systematic way will ensure none are left out.
Family Tree
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
Use the clues to find out who's who in the family, to fill in the family tree and to find out which of the family members are mathematicians and which are not.
Winning the Lottery
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
Try out the lottery that is played in a far-away land. What is the chance of winning?
Ordered Ways of Working Lower Primary
Age 5 to 7 Challenge Level:
These activities lend themselves to systematic working in the sense that it helps to have an ordered approach.
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. . . .
Uncanny Triangles
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
Can you help the children find the two triangles which have the lengths of two sides numerically equal to their areas?
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.
Two Dice
Age 5 to 7 Challenge Level:
Find all the numbers that can be made by adding the dots on two dice.
Finding All Possibilities Upper Primary
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
These activities focus on finding all possible solutions so working in a systematic way will ensure none are left out.
NRICH is part of the family of activities in the Millennium Mathematics Project.