Block 5: Investigations

Quite tricky word problems involving money, often requiring several steps to complete.

Much trickier than it first looks, with many possible options to choose from. Some time is needed to complete this correctly.

More difficult than you might think to find the cheapest deal, including percentages.

This is complicated with special offers and percentages off making finding the cheapest deal difficult to work out.

A holiday which might cost more than it should unless there is some careful calculating.

Finding the best deal is harder than it might seem!

Very tricky calculations to find the best deal.

Very tricky to find the best options.

Show all your calculating skills with just four fours.

Quick and easy way to multiply 2-digit numbers by 11 - why does it work?

More investigations on adding consecutive numbers, dividing by a half, writing a simple formula as well as shape patterns.

Using a multiplication square to look for number patterns: there are certainly plenty of them! Further sequence work, including Fibonacci.

Some great patterns can be found when dividing by 9 or 11, and using square numbers.

A good knowledge of the order of operations is needed for this problem solving task.

Complete a variety of number sequences and say what the rule for each sequence is. Some negative number work as well.

Plenty of ideas to help with investigations and inventing similar problems.

Try the Ancient Egyptian method of multiplying. Great, if you are good at adding up!

When answering these problems say which operation is needed and whether it can be done mentally, on paper or with a calculator.

More on choosing the most appropriate method of calculating.

A first look at triangle numbers.

More on triangle numbers.

Further investigations involving triangle numbers.

A perimeter/area investigation.

Questions which need an understanding of a.m., p.m., 24 hour clock, leap years as well as using graphs.

An atlas with time zones is needed for the first activity and there are line graphs on time to interpret.

A good knowledge of metric measures is needed to complete these questions.

Knowing that pi is equal to 3.14 can be very useful. If you know the diameter of a circle you can use it to work out the circumference.

Investigate numbers and shapes; quite tricky.