Can you find rectangles where the value of the area is the same as the value of the perimeter?
The area of a square inscribed in a circle with a unit radius is,
satisfyingly, 2. What is the area of a regular hexagon inscribed in
a circle with a unit radius?
Can you maximise the area available to a grazing goat?
Each of the following shapes is made from arcs of a circle of
radius r. What is the perimeter of a shape with 3, 4, 5 and n
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?
Square numbers can be represented as the sum of consecutive odd
numbers. What is the sum of 1 + 3 + ..... + 149 + 151 + 153?
Start with two numbers. This is the start of a sequence. The next
number is the average of the last two numbers. Continue the
sequence. What will happen if you carry on for ever?
Can all unit fractions be written as the sum of two unit fractions?
Explore when it is possible to construct a circle which just
touches all four sides of a quadrilateral.
Can you find six numbers to go in the Daisy from which you can make all the numbers from 1 to a number bigger than 25?
Many numbers can be expressed as the sum of two or more consecutive integers. For example, 15=7+8 and 10=1+2+3+4. Can you say which numbers can be expressed in this way?
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?
Five children went into the sweet shop after school. There were
choco bars, chews, mini eggs and lollypops, all costing under 50p.
Suggest a way in which Nathan could spend all his money.
Different combinations of the weights available allow you to make different totals. Which totals can you make?
Can you see how to build a harmonic triangle? Can you work out the next two rows?
Triangle ABC is isosceles while triangle DEF is equilateral. Find
one angle in terms of the other two.
Imagine you have a large supply of 3kg and 8kg weights. How many of each weight would you need for the average (mean) of the weights to be 6kg? What other averages could you have?
My two digit number is special because adding the sum of its digits to the product of its digits gives me my original number. What could my number be?
If it takes four men one day to build a wall, how long does it take
60,000 men to build a similar wall?
Have a go at creating these images based on circles. What do you notice about the areas of the different sections?
There are four children in a family, two girls, Kate and Sally, and
two boys, Tom and Ben. How old are the children?
Explore the effect of reflecting in two parallel mirror lines.
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.
Sissa cleverly asked the King for a reward that sounded quite modest but turned out to be rather large...
If the hypotenuse (base) length is 100cm and if an extra line
splits the base into 36cm and 64cm parts, what were the side
lengths for the original right-angled triangle?
Can you find an efficient method to work out how many handshakes
there would be if hundreds of people met?
Here are four tiles. They can be arranged in a 2 by 2 square so that this large square has a green edge. If the tiles are moved around, we can make a 2 by 2 square with a blue edge... Now try to. . . .
Explore the effect of combining enlargements.
A country has decided to have just two different coins, 3z and 5z
coins. Which totals can be made? Is there a largest total that
cannot be made? How do you know?
Is it always possible to combine two paints made up in the ratios
1:x and 1:y and turn them into paint made up in the ratio a:b ? Can
you find an efficent way of doing this?
A decorator can buy pink paint from two manufacturers. What is the
least number he would need of each type in order to produce
different shades of pink.
Do you notice anything about the solutions when you add and/or
subtract consecutive negative numbers?
What size square corners should be cut from a square piece of paper to make a box with the largest possible volume?
A spider is sitting in the middle of one of the smallest walls in a
room and a fly is resting beside the window. What is the shortest
distance the spider would have to crawl to catch the fly?
Liam's house has a staircase with 12 steps. He can go down the steps one at a time or two at time. In how many different ways can Liam go down the 12 steps?
How many different symmetrical shapes can you make by shading triangles or squares?
On the graph there are 28 marked points. These points all mark the
vertices (corners) of eight hidden squares. Can you find the eight
If: A + C = A; F x D = F; B - G = G; A + H = E; B / H = G; E - G =
F and A-H represent the numbers from 0 to 7 Find the values of A,
B, C, D, E, F and H.
Here is a chance to create some attractive images by rotating
shapes through multiples of 90 degrees, or 30 degrees, or 72
In a three-dimensional version of noughts and crosses, how many winning lines can you make?
Which has the greatest area, a circle or a square inscribed in an
isosceles, right angle triangle?
What is the same and what is different about these circle
questions? What connections can you make?
Can you find the area of a parallelogram defined by two vectors?
A circle is inscribed in a triangle which has side lengths of 8, 15
and 17 cm. What is the radius of the circle?
If you have only 40 metres of fencing available, what is the maximum area of land you can fence off?
A square of area 40 square cms is inscribed in a semicircle. Find
the area of the square that could be inscribed in a circle of the
A napkin is folded so that a corner coincides with the midpoint of
an opposite edge . Investigate the three triangles formed .
A game for 2 or more people, based on the traditional card game
Rummy. Players aim to make two `tricks', where each trick has to
consist of a picture of a shape, a name that describes that shape,
and. . . .
This shape comprises four semi-circles. What is the relationship
between the area of the shaded region and the area of the circle on
AB as diameter?
Ben passed a third of his counters to Jack, Jack passed a quarter
of his counters to Emma and Emma passed a fifth of her counters to
Ben. After this they all had the same number of counters.