An investigation that gives you the opportunity to make and justify
Ana and Ross looked in a trunk in the attic. They found old cloaks
and gowns, hats and masks. How many possible costumes could they
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?
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.
When newspaper pages get separated at home we have to try to sort
them out and get things in the correct order. How many ways can we
arrange these pages so that the numbering may be different?
If we had 16 light bars which digital numbers could we make? How
will you know you've found them all?
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.
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?
A thoughtful shepherd used bales of straw to protect the area
around his lambs. Explore how you can arrange the bales.
The challenge here is to find as many routes as you can for a fence
to go so that this town is divided up into two halves, each with 8
Only one side of a two-slice toaster is working. What is the
quickest way to toast both sides of three slices of bread?
How many models can you find which obey these rules?
Place the 16 different combinations of cup/saucer in this 4 by 4
arrangement so that no row or column contains more than one cup or
saucer of the same colour.
What can you say about these shapes? This problem challenges you to
create shapes with different areas and perimeters.
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.
How many ways can you find to do up all four buttons on my coat?
How about if I had five buttons? Six ...?
If you have three circular objects, you could arrange them so that
they are separate, touching, overlapping or inside each other. Can
you investigate all the different possibilities?
Place eight dots on this diagram, so that there are only two dots
on each straight line and only two dots on each circle.
Investigate the different ways you could split up these rooms so
that you have double the number.
Place the numbers 1 to 8 in the circles so that no consecutive
numbers are joined by a line.
These activities lend themselves to systematic working in the sense that it helps to have an ordered approach.
Place eight queens on an chessboard (an 8 by 8 grid) so that none
can capture any of the others.
Using the statements, can you work out how many of each type of
rabbit there are in these pens?
Tom and Ben visited Numberland. Use the maps to work out the number
of points each of their routes scores.
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!
A merchant brings four bars of gold to a jeweller. How can the
jeweller use the scales just twice to identify the lighter, fake
Cut differently-sized square corners from a square piece of paper
to make boxes without lids. Do they all have the same volume?
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?
Can you draw a square in which the perimeter is numerically equal
to the area?
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?
Swap the stars with the moons, using only knights' moves (as on a
chess board). What is the smallest number of moves possible?
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
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?
The planet of Vuvv has seven moons. Can you work out how long it is
between each super-eclipse?
Can you rearrange the biscuits on the plates so that the three
biscuits on each plate are all different and there is no plate with
two biscuits the same as two biscuits on another plate?
Can you put the 25 coloured tiles into the 5 x 5 square so that no
column, no row and no diagonal line have tiles of the same colour
On a digital 24 hour clock, at certain times, all the digits are
consecutive. How many times like this are there between midnight
and 7 a.m.?
In the planet system of Octa the planets are arranged in the shape
of an octahedron. How many different routes could be taken to get
from Planet A to Planet Zargon?
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
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!
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.
Here are four cubes joined together. How many other arrangements of
four cubes can you find? Can you draw them on dotty paper?
Sitting around a table are three girls and three boys. Use the
clues to work out were each person is sitting.
Tim's class collected data about all their pets. Can you put the
animal names under each column in the block graph using the
Here you see the front and back views of a dodecahedron. Each
vertex has been numbered so that the numbers around each pentagonal
face add up to 65. Can you find all the missing numbers?
How could you put these three beads into bags? How many different ways can you do it? How could you record what you've done?
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?
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?
This practical challenge invites you to investigate the different
squares you can make on a square geoboard or pegboard.
These activities focus on finding all possible solutions so working in a systematic way will ensure none are left out.