Successful mathematicians understand and use mathematical ideas and methods, solve problems, explain and justify their thinking, and have a positive attitude towards learning mathematics.
Exploring, questioning, working systematically, visualising, conjecturing, explaining, generalising, convincing, proving... are all at the heart of mathematical thinking. The activities below are designed to give you the opportunity to think and work as a mathematician.
For problems arranged by mathematical topics, see our Topics in Primary Mathematics page.
Exploring and noticing - Primary students
Age: 5 to 11
What do you notice as you explore these problems?
Working systematically - Primary students
Age: 5 to 11
Working systematically can help you find patterns in your work. Here's a selection of tasks where having good ways to sort and organise can be very helpful.
Conjecturing and generalising - Primary students
Age: 5 to 11
Work on these problems to improve your conjecturing and generalising skills.
Visualising and representing – Primary students
Age: 5 to 11
These maths challenges will give you a chance to see things in lots of different ways.
Explaining, convincing and proving - Primary students
Age: 5 to 11
Here are some challenges that you can work on and then see if you can convince someone that your solutions are right.