Wednesday 31 May 2017

June Challenge - Years 1 & 2

Barnaby Bear has just come home from his travels.  He needs to remember his door code in order to open his front door.  He needs to arrange 6 coloured pegs correctly into a rectangular grid for the door to unlock.  He wrote himself three clues to help him remember where each peg goes.  Can you help him work out where to put each peg?

Clues:

Red is below blue.

Yellow is between blue and green.

Pink is to the left of orange and red.



left
top


right








bottom

Tip:  First, find the colour of each of the six pegs.  Use coloured circles of paper to move around to try to satisfy the clues.


Solutions are to be completed by Friday 30th June.  Please post them into the Maths Challenge Box in the picture book library.

June Challenge - Years 3 & 4

Moneybags

The giant has 20 gold coins.

He sorts them into three moneybags.

The second bag has fewer than ten coins inside.

The third bag has one more gold coin than the first bag.

The second bag has three more coins than the third bag.

How many coins are in each of the moneybags?

Hint: Use coins or pasta to represent the gold coins.  Try to sort the objects into bags or bowls so that the rules are satisfied.  It might take a few tries.


Solutions are to be completed by Friday 30th June.  Please post them into the Maths Challenge Box in the picture book library.

June Challenge - Years 5 & 6

Take your seat

Jasper had waited all year for the talk by Professor Filament from the University of Bright Sparks.  He had already bought his ticket for £5 and walked into the auditorium to find his seat.  Already the place was buzzing with excitement.  He read the instructions to find his seat.

PLEASE READ THIS CAREFULLY.  Your seat is in a row that is eleventh from the front and sixth from the back.  There are fifteen seats on your left and nine to your right.  WARNING!  If you sit in the wrong seat you will be asked to leave the room and someone else will take your place.”

After some thought and a bit of searching Jasper exclaimed, “Ah there I am, right between those two ladies.”

Problem:
1.       How many seats are there in the auditorium?
2.       If the auditorium was full, how much money did Professor Filament make from his talk?
3.       If the auditorium was only a quarter full, how many people turned up?

Hint:  Drawing a diagram might help you get started.


Solutions are to be completed by Friday 30th June.  Please post them into the Maths Challenge Box in the picture book library.

Thursday 4 May 2017

May Challenge - Years 1 & 2

Noah’s Ark

Noah saw 12 legs walk by into the ark.  How many creatures could he have seen? 

Extra Challenge:  How many different answers can you find?

Tip:  Use toy animals or pictures of animals to help find totals of 12.


Solutions are to be completed by Friday 26th May.  Please post them into the Maths Challenge Box in the picture book library.

May Challenge - Years 3 & 4

When I went into a classroom earlier this week a child rushed up to tell me she was 8 that day!

Well, Happy Birthday to everyone who has a birthday today!

If you are 8 then this could be for you, but if it is another number then you just change the 8 to whatever your age is today.

There is not a lot to say to introduce this challenge. It's really just to find a great variety of ways of asking questions which make 8.  Sums like 6+222−14etc.

But you need to get examples that use all the different mathematical ideas that you know about.

1) So you could show some multiplications and some divisions.

2) If you know about fractions then you can add or subtract numbers involving fractions. You could also ask questions like "What is half of 16?''; "What is four-fifths of 10?'' and so on.

3) If you've come across decimals then do a few of those also, perhaps using all the four rules (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division).

And so on.

Use whatever mathematics you know to find as many different ways of getting the answer 8.


Solutions are to be completed by Friday 26th May.  Please post them into the Maths Challenge Box in the picture book library.

May Challenge - Years 5 & 6

Use these clues to find a number on a 100 square.  You can use the clues in any order.

  • ·         The number is odd.
  • ·         The number is > 35.
  • ·         The number is not prime.
  • ·         The number < 78.
  • ·         The number is a multiple of 3.
  • ·         The second digit is bigger than the first.
  • ·         The digits in the number are both odd.
  • ·         The number is not a multiple of 5.
  • ·         The sum of the digits in the number is 12.
  • ·         It is the larger of the two possibilities.


Hint:  You can make your own 100 square or find one online to print off.

Solutions are to be completed by Friday 26th May.  Please post them into the Maths Challenge Box in the picture book library.

Thursday 30 March 2017

April Challenge - Years 1 & 2

There are three baskets, a brown one, a red one and a pink one. Together they are holding a total of ten eggs.

The brown basket has one more egg in it than the red basket.

The red basket has three eggs less than the pink basket.
How many eggs are in each basket?

Getting Started:
Cut out ten eggs from paper and get three containers to represent the baskets.  Have a go at trying some different combinations.

After a while ask this
Why don't you choose a number of eggs for the pink basket? How many would be in the red basket, then? And how many in the brown basket?

Solutions are to be completed by Friday 28th April.  Please post them into the Maths Challenge Box in the picture book library.

April Challenge - Years 3 & 4

Teddy is going on holiday to Spain.  He has packed four pairs of shorts and three t-shirts in his suitcase so that he has just enough clothes to be able to wear a different outfit each day of his holiday.  Can you work out how many days Teddy is going on holiday for?

To get started:  You could draw out teddy’s wardrobe and give him four different coloured pairs of shorts (eg. red, green, blue and yellow) and three different t-shirts (eg. spotty, striped and plain).  Work in an organized manner.  How many outfits could Teddy make with his red shorts? …his green shorts?  …and so on.


Solutions are to be completed by Friday 28th April.  Please post them into the Maths Challenge Box in the picture book library.

April Challenge - Years 5 & 6

Have a go at these! Each number has some initials after it. Just work out what the initials mean as the numbers are the clues.

For example: 7 D in a W is 7 Days in a Week.


26 L in the A
24 H in a D
8 L on a S
52 W in a Y      or    C in a P (no J)
366 D in a L Y
6 W of H the E
7 S on a F P P
1000 M in a K
64 S on a C B
1066 B of H    (Hint:  Y5 you just wrote stories about this!)
28 D in F
200 P for P G in M

You do not need to solve them all to hand your solution in.  See how many you can get.  


Solutions are to be completed by Friday 28th April.  Please post them into the Maths Challenge Box in the picture book library.

Friday 3 March 2017

March Challenge - Years 1 & 2

Dan had 4 buckets.  He labelled each one with a number 1 through 4.  If he threw his bean bag into bucket 1, he got 1 point.  If he threw his bean bag into bucket 2, he got 2 points and so on.  Dan made a game of throwing 3 bean bags to see if he could get a high score.

Problem
a)     What is the highest score Dan could get with 3 bean bags?

For an extra challenge try these:
a)     Find three ways to score 6.
b)    Find three ways to score 9.
c)     What other totals could Dan get?

Solutions are to be completed by Tuesday 28th March.  Please post them into the Maths Challenge Box in the picture book library.

March Challenge - Years 3 & 4

Face painting!

The holiday season has just begun in Pegness and everyone is getting ready for a busy holiday.  Ingrid works as a children’s face painter during the summer and already has some customers at her stall on the pier, “Wow, customers already!  I’m normally a bit rusty after a break so I won’t be able to paint many face to start with.”  Ingrid is normally slow to start painting but each day of the season she gets quicker with more practice.  She also gets more customers each day.  On the first day she painted four children’s faces, on the second day she painted six faces and on the third she painted nine faces.  Yesterday, the fourth day of the season, she painted thirteen faces.  She just got quicker and quicker.  So quick in fact that people from all around stopped to watch her at work as she painted faces faster than a bee’s wings!  Pegness was a popular place and that was partly down to Ingrid herself and her amazing painting powers.

Problem:  If Ingrid keeps getting quicker, how many faces will she have painted by the eleventh day of the summer season.

Day
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
Faces
painted












Hint: Use the chart to record the information from the story.  How many more faces does she paint on each day?  Can you see a pattern in how the numbers increase?

Solutions are to be completed by Tuesday 28th March.  Please post them into the Maths Challenge Box in the picture book library.

March Challenge - Years 5 & 6

The Big Apple Orchard in New York has some of the biggest apples in the world.  Most apples grown here weigh in at over 1 kg.  But this year there is a problem.  An army of Scarlet Hairy Caterpillars is back in town munching through hundreds of Big Apple’s apples.

When Alex goes apple picking he finds that one out of eight apples has a caterpillar drilling a hole to the core.  “I can’t sell any of these apples which the caterpillars have had a go at!”

Some pickers are afraid of the enormous caterpillars, but others aren’t so bothered.  Henry says, “Actually, they’re alright.  The hairs tickle on the way down but really they taste just like apples!”

Problem:  How many saleable apples are there out of a crop of 112?

Hint: A chart might help you get started (although you may be able to do with just a couple of clever calculations).

Saleable apples
Apples attacked
Total number of
apples picked
7
1
8





Solutions are to be completed by Tuesday 28th March.  Please post them into the Maths Challenge Box in the picture book library.

Tuesday 31 January 2017

February Challenge - Years 1 & 2

Jack and Adele were both feeling grumpy.  It was a very hot day and they were stuck inside the classroom practising some really hard spellings.  Suddenly Adele shouted, “Move your arm!  It’s on my side of the table!”
            “No, it’s not! That’s my side,” shouted Jack angrily.  “And anyway, your pencil case is on my side of the table!” he moaned, shoving it to the floor.
            “Now, now stop all this noise,” said their teacher.  “I’ve got an idea.  I will draw a line to divide your table in half.  Then you will each have exactly the same amount of space and there will be no more arguing!”

Can you divide the rectangular table so that the two children have exactly the same amount of space?  Find different ways to divide the table into equal parts.  You can draw your solution on a piece of A4 paper pretending that the paper is the table top.

Hint:  Try different ways of folding the paper to get two equal halves.  Perhaps cutting may also allow you to test if your two halves are equal by laying them on top of each other.

Solutions are to be completed by Tuesday 28th February.  Please post them into the Maths Challenge Box in the picture book library.


February Challenge - Years 3 & 4

A little bit of logical thinking needed for this one!

Each letter is worth a number of points. The points are added up to make the total for the word. Try to work out the number of points for each letter and then find the value of the last word.

TEE = 4   (so T + E + E = 4)

TEN = 6   (so T + E + N = 6)

NEST = 10   (so N + E + S + T = 10)

TENTS = ?   (How many points would TENTS be?)

Hint:  Start by finding the value of S.  What is the difference between TEN and NEST (both in total value and in letters)?

Solutions are to be completed by Tuesday 28th February.  Please post them into the Maths Challenge Box in the picture book library.


February Challenge - Years 5 & 6

Using the numbers given, complete the number sentences below.  You may only use each value once.

1   5   9   10   11   15   18   20


____ + ____ = 29

____ + ____ + ____= 38

____ + ____ + ____ = 22



Solutions are to be completed by Tuesday 28th February.  Please post them into the Maths Challenge Box in the picture book library.

Wednesday 4 January 2017

January Challenge - Years 1 & 2

Jane has a bag with 2 coins inside.  Both of the coins have the same value.  How much money could be inside her bag?

Hint:  Use real coins to find all the possibilities.

Solutions are to be completed by Tuesday 31st January.  Please post them into the Maths Challenge Box in the picture book library.

January Challenge - Year 3 & 4

To get into the Metropolitan Mole Service wasn’t easy.  About 1000 moles applied every year for only 50 places.  The entrance test included an insect identification exam, a tunnel test and a problem-solving exercise.
Sergeant Star-nosed Moleskin devised a problem he though would sort out the applicants, ‘This will be a whole lot of fun for me.  We do get some applicants who make a fuss and say it’s too difficult – there are always some who make a mountain out of a molehill.’
All the applicants were nervous and none more so than Mike Burrow.  This was his big day and a chance for him to break free from his job at the London Underground digging new tunnels, ‘My dad was a plainclothes mole for 20 years and I aim to follow in his footsteps.  Let’s just hope I’ve got what it takes!’
Sergeant Star-nosed Moleskin gathered the applicants together in the parade ground and read out the problem, ‘Right then you ‘oribble lot, your task is this:  you are required to dig some mounds in a square shape so that each side of the square has eight mounds.  You have 20 minutes from now – so start digging!’
 
Problem:  How many mounds should the moles dig?

Hint: Draw a picture to check your answer, or use counters to represent the mounds.

If you would like an extra challenge try this:  The moles need to dig a rectangle with 30 mounds.  What could the length and width of this rectangle be?


All Solutions are to be completed by Tuesday 31st January.  Please post them into the Maths Challenge Box in the picture book library.

January Challenge - Years 5 & 6

At noon on New Year’s Day, Elizabeth wondered how many hours there were left in 2017.  She then wondered how many minutes were left.  Help Elizabeth to calculate how many hours were left in 2017, and then how many minutes.

For an extra challenge, calculate how many seconds were left in 2017.


Solutions are to be completed by Tuesday 31st January.  Please post them into the Maths Challenge Box in the picture book library.