Make new patterns from simple turning instructions. You can have a go using pencil and paper or with a floor robot.
In this activity, the computer chooses a times table and shifts it. Can you work out the table and the shift each time?
I've made some cubes and some cubes with holes in. This challenge invites you to explore the difference in the number of small cubes I've used. Can you see any patterns?
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?
An environment which simulates working with Cuisenaire rods.
Make a chair and table out of interlocking cubes, making sure that the chair fits under the table!
These sixteen children are standing in four lines of four, one behind the other. They are each holding a card with a number on it. Can you work out the missing numbers?
A hundred square has been printed on both sides of a piece of paper. What is on the back of 100? 58? 23? 19?
At the beginning of May Tom put his tomato plant outside. On the same day he sowed a bean in another pot. When will the two be the same height?
Arrange the shapes in a line so that you change either colour or shape in the next piece along. Can you find several ways to start with a blue triangle and end with a red circle?
Can you continue this pattern of triangles and begin to predict how many sticks are used for each new "layer"?
Place four pebbles on the sand in the form of a square. Keep adding as few pebbles as necessary to double the area. How many extra pebbles are added each time?
Can you find examples of magic crosses? Can you find all the possibilities?
How many rectangles can you see? Are they all the same size? Can you predict how many rectangles there will be in counting sticks of different lengths?
Watch this animation. What do you notice? What happens when you try more or fewer cubes in a bundle?
This activity creates an opportunity to explore all kinds of number-related patterns.
Investigate the totals you get when adding numbers on the diagonal of this pattern in threes.
This challenge, written for the Young Mathematicians' Award, invites you to explore 'centred squares'.
Here are some more lower primary number pattern tasks for you to try.
These upper primary activities offer opportunities for children to recognise, extend and explain number patterns.
These lower primary activities offer opportunities for children to create, recognise and extend number patterns.
This article for primary teachers outlines how we can encourage children to create, identify, extend and explain number patterns and why being able to do so is useful.
Using only the red and white rods, how many different ways are there to make up the other colours of rod?
It starts quite simple but great opportunities for number discoveries and patterns!
Polygonal numbers are those that are arranged in shapes as they enlarge. Explore the polygonal numbers drawn here.
Daisy and Akram were making number patterns. Daisy was using beads that looked like flowers and Akram was using cube bricks. First they were counting in twos.
Complete these two jigsaws then put one on top of the other. What happens when you add the 'touching' numbers? What happens when you change the position of the jigsaws?
Here is your chance to investigate the number 28 using shapes, cubes ... in fact anything at all.
This activity asks you to collect information about the birds you see in the garden. Are there patterns in the data or do the birds seem to visit randomly?
In this investigation, you are challenged to make mobile phone numbers which are easy to remember. What happens if you make a sequence adding 2 each time?
In this investigation, we look at Pascal's Triangle in a slightly different way - rotated and with the top line of ones taken off.
Investigate what happens when you add house numbers along a street in different ways.
In this article for teachers, Bernard Bagnall describes how to find digital roots and suggests that they can be worth exploring when confronted by a sequence of numbers.
Investigate these hexagons drawn from different sized equilateral triangles.
Investigate and explain the patterns that you see from recording just the units digits of numbers in the times tables.
If the numbers 5, 7 and 4 go into this function machine, what numbers will come out?
There are ten children in Becky's group. Can you find a set of numbers for each of them? Are there any other sets?
Can you describe what is happening as this program runs? Can you unpick the steps in the process?
Ben's class were cutting up number tracks. First they cut them into twos and added up the numbers on each piece. What patterns could they see?
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?
Mathematics is the study of patterns. Studying pattern is an opportunity to observe, hypothesise, experiment, discover and create.
Investigate the successive areas of light blue in these diagrams.
In each of the pictures the invitation is for you to: Count what you see. Identify how you think the pattern would continue.
Three beads are threaded on a circular wire and are coloured either red or blue. Can you find all four different combinations?
This number has 903 digits. What is the sum of all 903 digits?
How many different sets of numbers with at least four members can you find in the numbers in this box?