Summer Time Puzzles

Summer Puzzles 2024

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.

>> Download Ice Cream Hunt Activity Sheet

Seaside Path Finding Challenge

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.

>> Download Path Finding Challenge Activity Sheet

Summer Maze

Can you help our mathscot Finn Finity find his way to the ice cream? Use directional language (forward, backward, left, right) to help you navigate.

>> Download Summer Maze (easy)

>> Download Summer Maze (medium)

>> Download Summer Maze (advanced)

Summer Time Code Cracker

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.

>> Download Code Cracker Challenge

>> Download Cryptography Resource

Summer of Sport Logic Puzzle

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.

>> Download Logic Puzzle (easy)

>> Download Logic Puzzle (advanced)

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.

>> Download Summer Sudoku (easy)

>> Download Summer Sudoku (medium)

>> Download Summer Sudoku (hard)

Latest News and Events

News

Maths Week 2025: Wild Maths

Maths Week Scotland will be back 22 September - 28 September 2025 with the theme Wild Maths, looking at maths in the natural world.

News

Finn Finity and the Great Christmas Maths Mystery

Join us in the countdown to the Christmas holidays, to help Finn Finity solve a festive mystery at the museum!

16th-25th Jun
Event

Museum on the Move - National Museum of Scotland

National Museum of Scotland | | Free
A hands-on workshop where pupils work together to solve a series of maths-related problems based around planning to move one of the display objects at the National Museum of Scotland.