Best suited for Second and Third Level
Every year during Maths Week Scotland, BBC Bitesize shares a short daily puzzle set by the Scottish Mathematical Council. Perfect for a daily 'satert' during Maths Week, or for any other time of the year. Check out the most recent challenges, or browse the archives for even more maths fun!
Best suited for Second and Third Level
Welcome to T.A.L.E.S. – Thinking and Learning, Exploring, Solving which is a series of videos exploring mathematics through tales and interdisciplinary links, created by The Scottish Mathematical Council for Maths Week Scotland 2024.
Each video is accompanied by a brief description to support planning and preparation. Most suited to upper primary/early secondary – CfE second into third level.
Best suited for Second and Third Level
For our 2023 theme Maths in Motion, Maths Week Scotland collaborated with the Scottish Football Association (SFA) to highlight the impact of Maths & Numeracy on the world of football. Resources include the maths in Scottish Cup Goals, Match Stats, and Match Itineraries, covering a range of different maths concepts.
The SFA also collaborated with Twinkl to create some free, downloadable Maths Week Scotland resources.
Best suited for Second and Third Level
During Maths Week set up a classroom economy system with your class, to teach children financial responsibility through fun, experiential learning.
Best suited for Second and Third/Fourth Level
A zine is essentially a ‘little magazine’, created from one sheet of A4 paper, where learners can share their creative ideas. This can be done in class over a series of lessons, in groups or as part of a homework activity. Find out more about zines, how they fit into the curriculum and ways you can bring them into your classroom.
Please note: the examples included in this resource are aimed at Secondary Schools, but creating maths zines is a fun activity for all levels.
Best suited for Second and Third/Fourth Level
This series of five videos focuses on the mathematics in Art and Music. Topics covered include rhythm, pentatonic scales, tiling and tessellation, and the works of Piet Mondrian.
Each video is accompanied by a brief description, any web-links referred to in the video and a list of key vocabulary to support planning and preparation.
Created by the Scottish Mathematical Council for Maths Week Scotland 2022
Best suited for Second and Third/Fourth Level
Maths Week Scotland interviewed women for whom maths is at the core of their job. Whether it is statistics, bridges or budgets these women rely on maths every single day.
Kids (and adults!) often struggle to identify why maths is useful unless they want to be a maths teacher or banker. Watch these videos together and talk about how maths is important in a huge range of jobs - whatever your interest!
Best suited for Second and Third/Fourth Level
Learn with Will is a video series of Maths, Science and English. Join Chris and Will on their magical adventures as they bring stone circles to life and summon magical forest spirits, to help you learn about measuring circles.
In Bringing Magic Circles to Life, you'll learn how to measure different parts of a circle, like the radius, diameter, circumference, and area. And in Summon Magical Forest Spirits, you’ll learn how to measure more parts of a circle, like the arc and sector. And there's worksheets to download too, if you want to keep practicing.
Content by Learn with Will
Best suited for Second and Third/Fourth Level
To celebrate Maths Week Scotland 2025, DYW Live held a day of live webinars on the theme of 'wild maths', featuring:
A pre recorded session suitable for secondary learners is also available, where Xavi from Industrial Light & Magic explains how they use Maths in the creative sector to produce high quality VFX and CGI in films such as The Mandalorian, Pirates of the Carribean and Jurassic Park, with a particular emphasis on generating artificial weather.
Replays of all talks are available to watch on the e-sgoil website.
Best suited for Second and Third/Fourth Level
This collection of resources for P5 to S3 students by the University of Edinburgh focuses on strategy games and some applications of Mathematics to transport networks. The aim is to develop mathematical thinking and problem-solving skills, as well as exploring the creative and fun side of mathematics. All resources, including explanatory videos, a range of games and puzzles, and tips for teachers/parents can be found via the link below.
Produced in partnership with Maths Week Scotland
Best suited for Second and Third/Fourth Level
Anderston Primary School has created two treasure hunts which can be adapted to most schools as the locations are generic places like the school office and gate etc. Choose from:
a traditional treasure hunt for roughly P5 – S1
a musical, mathematical, digital treasure hunt for roughly P7 – S2
Best suited for Second Level and above
Explore the connection between maths, poetry and nature with your class, by writing Fibonacci Poems!
Popularised by Gregory K. Pincus, these poems follow a syllable structure based on the Fibonacci sequence.
Best suited for Second Level and above
Traditional Japanese haiku consist of seventeen phonetic units, which are arranged in a 5-7-5 pattern. For a mathematical twist, a pi-ku is a poem that follows the form of a haiku, but instead of the 5-7-5 haiku pattern, the syllables in a pi-ku follow the number of digits in the mathematical constant pi (π). So, instead of 5-7-5, a pi-ku would follow the pattern 3-1-4. You can also expand beyond three lines, by continuing to follow the digits of pi. Bring literacy and maths together, by writing some pi-ku with your class.
Best suited for Second Level and above
Soap bubbles, paper folding, computers and bridges are all inspiration for these Primary School maths activity ideas from the Royal Institution.
Best suited for Second Level and above
This RPG game about maths in Ancient Egypt was developed by Daisy Abbott from Anderston Primary Parent Council, for Maths Week Scotland 2024. It covers various maths topics.
Best suited for Third/Fourth Level
Conduit: Connecting Knowledge and Skills provides a pathway through Secondary learning whilst allowing leaders to modify resources to suit their students' needs. The Conduit team has been working in collaboration with Maths Week Scotland to produce a wide range of resources linking to and informed by Curriculum for Excellence, which support teaching and learning maths. These free resources include talking cards, activity sheets and classroom ideas to get pupils talking about and engaging with maths.
Best suited for Third Level
Explore Maths and Topical Science through botanical expeditions past and present. Take a global citizenship approach to learning about speed, distance and time - and apply this approach to Topical Science too.
The videos and tasks use historic and contemporary examples of expeditions undertaken to add to the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh's collection of 3 million pressed plant samples stored in its Herbarium.
These resources can be used within Third Level Maths and Third Level Science/Biology - or together as part of an interdisciplinary learning project.
The resources were created in partnership with Scotdec and made possible by the Maths Week Scotland Large Grants Fund and The National Lottery Heritage Fund.
Best suited for Third/Fourth Level
This resource are aimed at lower secondary pupils and helps learners explore the role of maths in the hacksilver discovered from the Roman empire.
Watch the video to find out how Museum Curator Dr Fraser Hunter uses maths to uncover the stories behind these hacked up treasures. Learn more with our Roman Hackers resource (download below), which guides pupils to create and hack up their own silver vessels.
Created by National Museums Scotland for Maths Week Scotland 2021
Best suited for Third/Fourth Level
These resources offer maths teams an opportunity to take an applications approach within the BGE phase. The materials explore 3 broad themes – climate change, gender equality and migration – with 2 sets of activities for each theme supported with a PowerPoint presentation.
Created by Scotdec
Best suited for Third/Fourth Level
Introduce your pupils to the concept of populations and samples by taking on the role of an Antarctic scientist calculating penguin populations.
Developed by the Royal Statistical Society.
Best suited for Third/Fourth Level
Navigating our World has been developed by the Learning and Engagement Team at Dynamic Earth, with funding from Maths Week Scotland, to highlight the maths in the world around us and relate it to topics such as outer space, map reading, and world history.
In this workshop we give an introduction to navigation; discuss the history and uses of latitude and longitude; visit Edinburgh’s One O’clock Gun and discuss the speed of sound; look at how satellite navigation works; and wrap it all up with a timeline of the entire history of navigation. Ideal for learners working across second-fourth level and can be access in a modular and on-demand way through videos and downloadable resources in your classroom
Best suited for Third/Fourth Level
To celebrate Maths Week Scotland 2023, DYW Live held a day of live webinars on the theme of 'maths in motion', featuring:
Replays of all talks are available to watch on the e-sgoil website.
Best suited for Third/Fourth Level
To celebrate Maths Week Scotland 2024, DYW Live held a day of live webinars on the theme of 'maths tales', featuring:
Replays of all talks are available to watch on the e-sgoil website.
Best suited for Third Level and above
A series of videos produced by the University of Edinburgh in collaboration with Maths Week Scotland, where five Maths graduates working in different sectors explain how they use mathematics in their job. Each of them also challenges us with a puzzle which is somehow related to their work. A solution to each puzzle is also presented.
The videos, together with handouts and solutions to the puzzles can be found via the link below.
Produced by Francesca Iezzi and Aarol Films.