With the summer holidays looming, we've put together a selection of seasonal summer puzzles covering a range of different maths skills including counting, pattern recognition, logical thinking and code breaking. You can download PDFs of all our puzzles below - they're perfect for some end of term fun at school or as a boredom buster during the holidays.
Ice Cream Hunt
Get ready for some seasonal counting fun! How many of each of ice cream can you find? For a bonus activity, colour in each type of ice cream with a different colour.
Can you find your way along the seashore by following the repeating pattern from START to END? Colour each square in the repeating pattern to mark out the correct path.
The punchlines to five summer time jokes have been encrypted as secret messages, using Pigpen Cipher. Can you crack the code?
You can also have a go at encrypting your own secret messages, using our Cryptography resource developed by the Open University, with five different ciphers to choose from.
It’s a Summer of Sports, with the UEFA European Football Championship (Euro2024), Wimbledon Tennis Tournament, Tour de France bicycle race , and the Summer Olympic Games all taking place from June through to August. Can you work out from the clues who has gone to watch which sporting event, and what snacks they are eating. In the advanced puzzle you'll also need to work out what the weather was like at each event.
In our Summer Sudoku, use your pattern recognition and logical thinking skills to complete the seasonal patterns. Cut out the symbols and place them on the grid so that you have one of each symbol in every row, column and 2x2, 3x2 block or 3x3 block. There are three different levels of difficulty to choose from.
We love to see people doing our activities, so feel free to share photos of your Summer puzzles on Facebook or Bluesky with the hashtag #MathsWeekScot and tag us in!
It is almost time for the RSPB Big Schools’ Bird Watch – the largest citizen science project for schools across the UK. Running from 6th January- 13th February 2026. Sign your school up now, and then get counting in the new year!
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.
