The big circular windows that take pride of place in many churches or cathedrals - often referred to as 'rose windows' - are usually divided into symmetrical sections, with intricate designs made up of shapes. Today, we'll show you how to create your own mini rose window, with a symmetrical design.
Shut the Box is a fun dice game for two or more players, though can also be played by one player as a solitaire game. It's a great game for encouraging number recognition and practicing addition and number bonds.
The card game 'Trash' (also known as 'Garbage') is great for number recognition and for practicing number sequences. All you need is a standard deck of 52 playing cards.
Four friends went to the beach together. Can you work out what activity each of them did at the beach, and what flavour of ice cream they ate? There are two levels of difficulty to choose from. In Level 2, you'll also need to work out how they got to the beach.
Tessellations are arrangements of shapes closely fitted together, in a repeated pattern without gaps or overlapping. how to make your own tessellation template, so that your repeating pattern fits together.
Sevens is a fun dice game for two or more players, that you can play anywhere, any time. It encourages number and quantity recognition, and basic addition skills.
Whether you’re travelling and need something to keep the kids busy on the road, or looking for a boredom buster back at home, you can’t go wrong with this quick and easy pen and paper game.
A pentomino puzzle is a tiling puzzle with lots of different solutions, that helps build problem solving skills and strategic thinking. Dig out your Lego to create your own puzzle!
Create your own geometric cityscape, inspired by the artworks of Paul Klee.
Learn how to play Dara - a row building game from Northwest Africa, that encourages number sense, logical thinking and spacial perception.
Oh we do like to be beside the seaside... Keep up your maths over the summer holidays, with our fun games and activities to do at the beach.
We love taking our maths outdoors, so we've come up with 30 fun ideas to do together as a family, that will get you active in nature and incorporate some maths along the way. Complete with downloadable calendar of ideas, and a set of 30 activity 'cards'.
We've put together a selection of Spring and Easter puzzles covering a range of different maths skills including counting, pattern recognition, logical thinking, code breaking, and using tessellation or symmetry to create designs.
A simple but fun maths activity perfect for Valentine's Day. Create a geometric heart out of squares and triangles, and learn about patterns, fractions and multiplication along the way.
Celebrate Burns Night with our fun shape activity, in honour of one of Robert Burns' most well known poems, 'To a Mouse'. Cut out shapes of different sizes from coloured paper or card, and arrange them to create mice. What other shapes can you use? How about a pentagon or a hexagon mouse?
We love baking here at Maths Week Scotland, and pancakes are no different. Find out how much maths is involved in baking, have a go at our fun maths facts activities, and download our recipe to bake your own yummy pancakes at home.
A scavenger hunt is a great way to get out and about AND have some fun with maths. Go on a Shape Hunt, looking for how many different shapes you can find in your neighbourhood. Why not document what you find and share your photographs with us online!
In a series of four videos, children demonstrate how mathematical principles including symmetry, tessellation and 3D shapes, can be the basis for a huge range of art and craft projects. Cubic chickens, cat portraits, stained glass windows, stencils, a birthday card for your granny…
The videos are made with children in mind, but are suitable for all ages - try for yourself!
Created by Anne McNaught and Johanna Hall
Test your problem-solving skills and try to crack our secret messages using clues
Code Break is an interactive web app consisting of three ciphers: Pigpen, Caesar and simple substitution (solved by frequency analysis). Earn stars for each challenge, and learn about code-breaking through the ages by playing our interactive ‘Could you be a code breaker?’
Created by the Open University
Pyramid is a card game for two or more players, to practice addition. For older children, the same game play can also be used for multiplication. To play either version, you will need a standard set of cards with the face cards (Jack, Queen, King) removed.
Here's a fun wee activity for younger learners, to playfully encourage number recognition: dig out your Lego and get creating! Building with Lego is an opportunity to incorporate a little maths in to your children's play time. How many bricks do they need of each colour? What size of bricks - 2x2 blocks, or 2x4? While they're having fun, they're already learning maths without even realising it.
It's time for a little geometry magic! Children will love this geometry paper trick - first you can impress them with it, and then they can impress their friends.
Are you ready for a mathematical space adventure? Prepare for a journey to the Planet Turasmara. Download and complete your passport application ready for boarding, then solve the six space maths challenges!
Created by the Scottish Mathematical Council
Pig is a dice game for two or more players. All you need to play is one six sided die, some paper and a pen or pencil to keep score. Pig is what's known as a jeopardy game, where you have to decide whether to jeopardise previous points gained by rolling again to gain even more points. As well as practicing basic maths skills counting up your scores, Pig teaches you to think strategically - if you are too greedy and take too many risks, you might lose your points!