Other tags that relate to Building with Cubes
Interlocking cubes. Working systematically. Investigations. Visualising. Games. Combinations. Practical Activity. Squares. Cubes & cuboids. Tangram.There are 318 results
Broad Topics > Thinking Mathematically > Working systematically
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.
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?
Three Sets of Cubes, Two Surfaces
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
How many models can you find which obey these rules?
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?
Multilink Cubes
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
If you had 36 cubes, what different cuboids could you make?
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?
Button-up Some More
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
How many ways can you find to do up all four buttons on my coat? How about if I had five buttons? Six ...?
Torn Shapes
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
These rectangles have been torn. How many squares did each one have inside it before it was ripped?
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?
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?
Routes 1 and 5
Age 5 to 7 Challenge Level:
Find your way through the grid starting at 2 and following these operations. What number do you end on?
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?
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?
Polydron
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
This activity investigates how you might make squares and pentominoes from Polydron.
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?
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?
Wag Worms
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
When intergalactic Wag Worms are born they look just like a cube. Each year they grow another cube in any direction. Find all the shapes that five-year-old Wag Worms can be.
Fencing Lambs
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
A thoughtful shepherd used bales of straw to protect the area around his lambs. Explore how you can arrange the bales.
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.
Making Squares
Age 7 to 11
Investigate all the different squares you can make on this 5 by 5 grid by making your starting side go from the bottom left hand point. Can you find out the areas of all these squares?
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. . . .
Stairs
Age 5 to 11 Challenge Level:
This challenge is to design different step arrangements, which must go along a distance of 6 on the steps and must end up at 6 high.
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.
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?
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?
New House
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
In this investigation, you must try to make houses using cubes. If the base must not spill over 4 squares and you have 7 cubes which stand for 7 rooms, what different designs can you come up with?
Cubes Here and There
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
How many shapes can you build from three red and two green cubes? Can you use what you've found out to predict the number for four red and two green?
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?
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.
My New Patio
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
What is the smallest number of tiles needed to tile this patio? Can you investigate patios of different sizes?
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?
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?
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?
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?
Tiles on a Patio
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
How many ways can you find of tiling the square patio, using square tiles of different sizes?
Train Carriages
Age 5 to 11 Challenge Level:
Suppose there is a train with 24 carriages which are going to be put together to make up some new trains. Can you find all the ways that this can be done?
Peg and Pin Boards
Age 5 to 11
This article for teachers suggests activities based on pegboards, from pattern generation to finding all possible triangles, for example.
Bean Bags for Bernard's Bag
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
How could you put eight beanbags in the hoops so that there are four in the blue hoop, five in the red and six in the yellow? Can you find all the ways of doing this?
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?
Fake Gold
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
A merchant brings four bars of gold to a jeweller. How can the jeweller use the scales just twice to identify the lighter, fake bar?
Button-up
Age 5 to 7 Challenge Level:
My coat has three buttons. How many ways can you find to do up all the buttons?
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.
Sweets in a Box
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
How many different shaped boxes can you design for 36 sweets in one layer? Can you arrange the sweets so that no sweets of the same colour are next to each other in any direction?
Winning the Lottery
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
Find out about the lottery that is played in a far-away land. What is the chance of winning?
Dienes' Logiblocs
Age 5 to 7 Challenge Level:
This problem focuses on Dienes' Logiblocs. What is the same and what is different about these pairs of shapes? Can you describe the shapes in the picture?
Numerically Equal
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
Can you draw a square in which the perimeter is numerically equal to the area?
It Figures
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
Suppose we allow ourselves to use three numbers less than 10 and multiply them together. How many different products can you find? How do you know you've got them all?
Two by One
Age 7 to 11 Challenge Level:
An activity making various patterns with 2 x 1 rectangular tiles.
NRICH is part of the family of activities in the Millennium Mathematics Project.