We've got a fun activity for you today to keep the kids busy during half term or a rainy weekend stuck at home. Dig out your old magazines, and challenge them to a magazine number hunt!
All you need for your magazine number hunt is a pile of old magazines that can be cut up, and a pair of scissors. Optionally, also a sheet of paper and some glue, to stick everything down at the end.
If you don't have any old magazines to hand, some stores such as Tesco, Boots, Superdrug or Waitrose have magazines that are either free or free with a store loyalty card. Or check out neighbourhood 'swap and sell' groups to see if anyone is giving old magazines away.
The challenge is to browse through the magazines and cut out any numbers you come across. Page numbers don't count! That would be too easy. How many different numbers can you find?
Then, arrange the numbers in ascending order from smallest to biggest. Optionally, you can also glue them on to a sheet of paper once the sorting is done. Can you spot the number in the photo below that still needs to be sorted?
Variation: Shape Hunt
Another fun activity to do, while you have the magazines out, is to see how many different shapes you can find. Write out the names of various shapes on pieces of paper, along with a drawing of each shape for visual guidance, and spread them out on a table. Then get the kids to browse through the magazines, cut out any shapes they find, and match them up.
After the finding and matching the shapes, children can then have fun using the found shapes to create a picture collage:
We love to see people doing our activities, so feel free to share photos of your magazine number or shape hunts on Facebook or Bluesky with the hashtag #MathsWeekScot and tag us in!
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.
