Linear equation solving, solutions. Students are required to solve linear equations then write the value of the solution in the crossword grid. All equations have variables on both sides. The nature of the task encourages students to check their solutions. The teacher's guide gives some advice concerning strategies. The answers are provided.

This comprehensive pack contains resources to introduce students to Conway’s Game of Life. Watch configurations of dots die, survive and give birth. This recreational mathematics topic has fascinated thousands of people since its discovery in 1970. The pack contains four worksheets with student activity Challenges, a 5-page Teacher’s Guide with answers to all the Challenges and an accompanying suite of 4 Grid Templates. It is suitable for students of all ages and ranges of ability. The Guide also gives advice as to suitable classroom approaches, further extension work and reference to videos and software. Worksheet 1 introduces the idea of Neighbours, Worksheet 2 focusses on death from loneliness and overcrowding. Worksheet 3 tackles the birth of dots. Then Worksheet 4 brings all the rules together and the activities focus on finding the next generation for various configurations. Still Life patterns are also explored. The emphasis throughout is on activity, exploration and extension work. Much of the activity is suitable for group work. Reference is made to suitable motivational videos and to an excellent free open-source software package (Golly) for further exploration.

A Cross-Number Puzzle based on Booga Booga (a Roblox game). The Pupil Information Sheet provides: the effect of various tools (Axes, Rock etc) on health, facts about different Trees and Bushes, facts about a Campfire. Students are required to interpret the clues, extract relevant data from the Information Sheet and then to do the necessary calculations (manually or with calculator) Students who are not familiar with the game will not be at a disadvantage as the puzzle is self-contained. The Teacher Guide gives the answers by means of a completed grid. An indication of the difficulty level of the calculations required is given. This allows the teacher to easily judge whether or not calculators should be used.

There are three Cross-number Puzzles provided in this worksheet resource: Puzzle A, Puzzle B and Puzzle C. They are in increasing order of difficulty. All clues involve a mixture of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of fractions. Puzzles A and B involve operations with two fractions or mixed fractions. It is possible to complete each of these two puzzles by ignoring the division clues. The clues in Puzzle C all involve operations with three fractions. Knowledge of the order of operations is essential to solve this third puzzle. There is an explanation given on each puzzle sheet of how fractions or mixed fractions are to be entered in the grid The full answers to the three puzzles are given in the Notes for Teachers along with a few relevant notes regarding the puzzles.

To complete these cross-number puzzle grids students will use their knowledge of the sequence of square numbers. The clues for Puzzle A include index notation and phrases like: “the square of 3”, “3 squared” and “the 3rd square number”. In the Teacher’s Guide are outlines of different classroom approaches e.g.calculation based or geometrical pattern based. The student sheet includes geometrical diagrams of the square number sequence. Puzzle B involves calculating sums and differences of square numbers and would be useful preparation for Pythagoras’ Theorem calculations. Full solutions are included in the Teacher’s Guide.

Students use the cut-out sheet to make a set of 12 pentominoes. This puzzle pack has 20 shape templates. Each shape can be created using all 12 pentominoes. The shapes are themed as rectangles (including squares) with holes in them. The Teacher's Guide gives solutions for all puzzles and some advice for helping students who are stuck.

Magic squares, tetrominoes, pentominoes, dissection puzzle, magic number. These two puzzles involve the student cutting out a set of tetromino or pentomino shapes with numbers on them. The task is to reconstruct a magic square using the pieces. A teachers guide suggests various approaches to the puzzle, one of which involves an investigation of what the 'magic number' will be. Answers are provided.

Chinese characters, Chinese number system, place value, cross-cultural, cross-number puzzle. To complete this cross-number puzzle students are required to translate familiar arabic numbers into Chinese character numbers and to write these characters in the grid. A teacher's guide gives the necessary background and possible approaches. The answer is provided. This activity would follow naturally from my resource: Chinese Numbers No1.

Number bases, decimal system, place value, number puzzle, reflection, addition & subtraction of integers. This Cross-Number puzzle involves the use of a novel 'reverse notation' or 'looking glass arithmetic'. Students should be encouraged to investigate and discover rules for adding and subtracting digimirror numbers. A detailed teacher's guide is included which suggests possible classroom approaches. Answers are provided. My resource 'Digimirror Maths' would be a natural introduction to this activity.

This activity worksheet involves patterns of regularly increasing arrangements of dots. Students are required to calculate the number of dots in a given arrangement further along the pattern. They are then asked to generalise to “Pattern n”. A detailed Teacher’s Guide outlines different ways this resource may be used. Students should be encouraged to be creative and find different calculations methods which will lead to different algebraic forms. This then naturally leads to the algebraic simplification of the resulting expressions.

This resource consists of 5 worksheets and a 6 page Teacher’s Guide. These worksheets explore the amazing symmetries occurring in the decimal expansions of prime reciprocals. Students investigate the cycles of digits in these expansions and complete beautiful cyclic diagrams, templates of which are supplied in these worksheets. The primes 3, 7, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31 and 37 are explored. Hidden patterns are revealed and a connection between the number of cycles and the length of the cycles is discovered. The completed diagrams are given in the Teacher’s Guide which also contains the outline of an investigative approach to the topic. Details are given of the various stages of the investigation and how the worksheets may be incorporated. Various extensions are suggested including the use of a spreadsheet. This is a fascinating topic which will provide rich and rewarding mathematical experiences for the students.

This cross-number puzzle is based on Factorio which is a real-time factory simulation computer game. Factories are built to produce various items from resources. The icons of all the resources and products used in the puzzle are shown and named on Information Sheet No1. Some of the production processes from the game are shown on the Information Sheets. Each process requires 1, 2 or 3 ingredients and the length of time in seconds to complete each process is also given. Students are required to interpret the clues, extract relevant data from the Information Sheets and then to do the necessary calculations (manually or with calculator) Students who are not familiar with the game will not be at a disadvantage as the puzzle is self-contained. The Teacher Guide gives the answers by means of a completed puzzle grid. The actual calculations required to solve each clue are given. This allows the teacher to easily judge the difficulty level involved and whether calculators should be allowed. There are also descriptions and suggestions for use in the classroom and for further extension work. PC Gamer praised Factorio, calling it “a manufacturing masterpiece” and it has now sold over 2·5 million copies. It is an extremely creative and highly educational game.

These Hexceed Puzzles require simple logical deduction from the clues given to find the position of ‘Danger Hexes’ in a small irregular grid of hexagons. The puzzle is completed by adding missing numbers in the ‘Clue Hexes’. The puzzle is solved when all Hexes are filled. Each Student Puzzle Sheet has a diagrammatic explanation at the top of the sheet so should be self contained. The package consists of three Student Puzzle Sheets and three accompanying Teacher Notes. The Teacher Notes contain the full solution to all the Puzzles along with some useful suggestions for the class use of the Puzzle Sheets. There are also suggestions for extension work. You will find a more elaborate on-line version of the Hexceed Puzzle free to play on the Steam platform. Search term: “hexceed”. I hope your students enjoy solving these Puzzle. Your feedback would be welcome.

A Cross-Number Puzzle based on Factory Town Tycoon (a Roblox game). The pupil’s Information Sheet provides: buying prices for 5 types of goods; numbers of goods required to build a selection of items; a simple production line example. Students are required to interpret the clues, extract relevant data from the Information Sheet and then to do the necessary calculations (manually or with calculator) Students who are not familiar with the game will not be at a disadvantage as the puzzle is self-contained. The Teacher’s Guide gives the answers by means of a completed grid. The actual calculations required to solve each clue are given. This allows the teacher to easily judge the difficulty level involved and whether calculators should be allowed. There are also descriptions and suggestions for use in the classroom and for further extension work.

Number bases, decimal system, place value, number puzzle, reflection. This worksheet introduces a novel 'numeric language' using 'reverse notation'. The digits 6, 7, 8 and 9 are banned. The allowed digits may be written in reverse (mirror image). Students should be given time to explore the given examples to see if they can discover the method. Four graded tasks are given. There is a detailed teacher's guide along with the answers to the tasks. Students love this activity!

This is a cross-number puzzle that requires Web searches to find the necessary information. Much of it involves finding information about special numbers e.g. Armstrong Numbers, Golden Primes, Repfigits, Vampire numbers and their Fangs, Tribonacci Numbers, Beastly Numbers, Smith Numbers and the Smith Brothers. Primes, squares, cubes and perfect numbers also get a look in along with the idea of permutations. And who is Kaprekar and what is his routine? A demanding fun-packed puzzle that should keep able pupils busy for at least a period! The answer is also supplied.

A fun activity involving a self-referential property of number names as written in English. A structured diagram has to be completed correctly with the names of the numbers from 1 to 20. This is not a straightforward task and lends itself to plenty of discussion. The Teacher's Guide gives "the rule" along with the completed diagram. There is also advice given on approaches to using the resource along with many suggestions for further investigational activities.