On this page you can find the solutions to the brain teasers from our My Maths Week Scotlandbooklets.
Matchstick Puzzle
Here's the original puzzle:
Can you REMOVE exactly THREE matchsticks, to make the above equation true? It can be solved in three different ways.
And here are the three solutions:
Solution 1
Solution 2
Solution 3
Magic Square
Here's the original puzzle:
The challenge was to place the numbers 1-9 in the squares so that the sum of each horizontal, vertical and diagonal row or column adds up to 15. You could use each number only once.
We started you off with number 5 in the middle of the square. 15 - 5 = 10, which means the remaining numbers in each row or column had to add up to 10. So you had to pair up the remaining numbers to make 10: 1 + 9, 2 + 8, 3 + 7 and 4 + 6. To solve the magic square, place the pairs of even numbers in the corner spaces, and the pairs of odd numbers in the remaining spaces.
There are eight different possibilities of placing the numbers, but they are all rotations or reflections of the same pattern:
We've pulled together all our seasonal resources from the last three years, and thrown in a few new ones too, so that you can create your own Christmas Holiday Countdown depending on age, ability and preferences. With games, puzzles, art and craft activities to choose from, as well as our interactive puzzle mystery story.
To celebrate Book Week Scotland, we are delighted to announce the finalists and winners of our Maths Tales 2025 story-writing competition, run in partnership with Read Write Count with The First Minister.
