Maths Puzzle Day

Tips for organising your Maths Puzzle Day

The sky is the limit when it comes to organising your Maths Puzzle Day! Whether you’re a seasoned Maths Week event planner or a budding novice, you’ll find endless inspiration and ideas here to create a memorable event. Use the links below to discover a wealth of puzzles guaranteed to bring hours of learning and entertainment to your class or group.

For those of you just starting out, there are a number of formats you can adopt for a Maths Puzzle Day. Listed are some popular formats you can choose to follow. Select one and see how it works with your group or class.

Participants are divided into small teams (3-4 people per team). Puzzles are set out on tables in a designated area such as a classroom or school hall. Teams are instructed to move around the room, tackling the puzzles one at a time. For each puzzle challenge, they are given a set amount of time. Each team gets a score depending on how many puzzles their team solves. Below are some links to great resources for puzzle challenge ideas.

Again students are divided into small teams of 3-4 people. The first puzzle challenge is distributed amongst the teams. In this type of challenge, the team is required to solve the puzzle they are working on correctly before moving onto the next puzzle. Below are some links to great resources for puzzle challenge ideas.

A set of puzzle challenges is given out at the beginning of the week to all students in the school, either individually or in teams. Below are some links to great resources for puzzle challenge ideas.

Quick-fire short puzzles can be given out daily. Below are some links to great resources for puzzle challenge ideas.

Problem Solving Puzzles

Problem-solving is an individual’s capacity to use cognitive processes to confront and resolve real cross-disciplinary situations where the solution path is not immediately obvious and where the literacy domains or curricular areas that might be applicable are not within a single domain of mathematics, science or literacy. Click on the puzzles for a printable version.

Number Maze

Number Maze

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The Take Away Game

Jumping Chips

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Towers of Hanoi

Colour the Square

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Crossing the river

Where to find maths puzzles

Visit our Maths Week puzzle page to see a number of puzzles for all ages.
Our Teachers’ Area has plenty more paper puzzles that will come in useful for your puzzle day.

Check out some of the links to puzzle websites below where you can find and download useful materials.

Puzzle.com –
fantastic website full of great puzzles. All puzzles come with clear solutions.

Nrich –
an excellent range of puzzles and mathematical challenges for students of all ages.

Primary Mathematics Challenge –
papers from 2008 to 2013 with answers that are free to download (hint: these questions make a good source of puzzle challenge questions for team games).

The FunMaths Roadshow –
excellent collection of 350 mathematical activities suitable for use with school pupils between the ages of 5 and 20.

Centre for Innovation in Mathematics Teaching –
over 100 competitions puzzle challenges with answers ready to be cut out and used.

Learn more about some of the great puzzlers from history

Sam Loyd (1841-1911) – dubbed “America’s greatest puzzler”, Sam Loyd was a chess player, puzzler and creator of Puzzleland – “an enchanted place where every sign is a puzzle, every question a riddle, and you must guess everything you eat”.

Henry Dudeney (1857-1930) – English puzzler and founding member of the British Chess Problem Society. Along with Sam Loyd, Dudeney was one of the main creators of mathematical puzzles and recreations of his day.

Martin Gardner (1914-2010) – American popular mathematics and science writer specialising in recreational mathematics. On and around the 21st October each year there is a worldwide celebration of Martin Gardner and his legacy.