Try to stop your opponent from being able to split the piles of counters into unequal numbers. Can you find a strategy?
Investigate the smallest number of moves it takes to turn these
mats upside-down if you can only turn exactly three at a time.
An odd version of tic tac toe
Incey Wincey Spider game for an adult and child. Will Incey get to the top of the drainpipe?
What are the coordinates of the coloured dots that mark out the
tangram? Try changing the position of the origin. What happens to
the coordinates now?
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?
Starting with the number 180, take away 9 again and again, joining up the dots as you go. Watch out - don't join all the dots!
Arrange the four number cards on the grid, according to the rules,
to make a diagonal, vertical or horizontal line.
An interactive activity for one to experiment with a tricky tessellation
A game for 2 people that can be played on line or with pens and paper. Combine your knowledege of coordinates with your skills of strategic thinking.
Move just three of the circles so that the triangle faces in the
Yasmin and Zach have some bears to share. Which numbers of bears
can they share so that there are none left over?
A game for 2 people that everybody knows. You can play with a
friend or online. If you play correctly you never lose!
A generic circular pegboard resource.
A card pairing game involving knowledge of simple ratio.
Can you complete this jigsaw of the multiplication square?
Ben and his mum are planting garlic. Use the interactivity to help
you find out how many cloves of garlic they might have had.
Use the interactivity to find out how many quarter turns the man must rotate through to look like each of the pictures.
This article gives you a few ideas for understanding the Got It! game and how you might find a winning strategy.
Is it possible to place 2 counters on the 3 by 3 grid so that there
is an even number of counters in every row and every column? How
about if you have 3 counters or 4 counters or....?
Place the numbers from 1 to 9 in the squares below so that the difference between joined squares is odd. How many different ways can you do this?
Take it in turns to place a domino on the grid. One to be placed horizontally and the other vertically. Can you make it impossible for your opponent to play?
Choose four of the numbers from 1 to 9 to put in the squares so that the differences between joined squares are odd.
If there are 3 squares in the ring, can you place three different numbers in them so that their differences are odd? Try with different numbers of squares around the ring. What do you notice?
Mr Gilderdale is playing a game with his class. What rule might he have chosen? How would you test your idea?
Investigate which numbers make these lights come on. What is the smallest number you can find that lights up all the lights?
Here is a chance to play a version of the classic Countdown Game.
Our 2008 Advent Calendar has a 'Making Maths' activity for every
day in the run-up to Christmas.
Choose 13 spots on the grid. Can you work out the scoring system? What is the maximum possible score?
There are three versions of this challenge. The idea is to change the colour of all the spots on the grid. Can you do it in fewer throws of the dice?
Train game for an adult and child. Who will be the first to make the train?
First Connect Three game for an adult and child. Use the dice numbers and either addition or subtraction to get three numbers in a straight line.
Using angular.js to bind inputs to outputs
You'll need two dice to play this game against a partner. Will Incey Wincey make it to the top of the drain pipe or the bottom of the drain pipe first?
Twenty four games for the run-up to Christmas.
If you have only four weights, where could you place them in order
to balance this equaliser?
How have the numbers been placed in this Carroll diagram? Which
labels would you put on each row and column?
Can you work out how to balance this equaliser? You can put more
than one weight on a hook.
Ahmed has some wooden planks to use for three sides of a rabbit run
against the shed. What quadrilaterals would he be able to make with
the planks of different lengths?
Play this well-known game against the computer where each player is
equally likely to choose scissors, paper or rock. Why not try the
Use the interactivities to fill in these Carroll diagrams. How do you know where to place the numbers?
Complete the squares - but be warned some are trickier than they
A train building game for 2 players.
Can you use the numbers on the dice to reach your end of the number line before your partner beats you?
How many trains can you make which are the same length as Matt's, using rods that are identical?
Match the halves.
An interactive game for 1 person. You are given a rectangle with 50 squares on it. Roll the dice to get a percentage between 2 and 100. How many squares is this? Keep going until you get 100. . . .
NRICH December 2006 advent calendar - a new tangram for each day in
the run-up to Christmas.
Use the interactivity to sort these numbers into sets. Can you give
each set a name?