A Bronze, Silver, Gold differentiated resource. Students are given a variety of fractions, decimals and percentages which they must place into a square grid, ensuring that every row and column is in ascending order. This hopefully makes quite a dull topic a little more interesting! There are multiple solutions to the puzzles, but I have provided one possible answer to each puzzle. However, to make the puzzles work, the smallest value must go in the top left box, and the largest value must go in the bottom right box.

I wanted something a bit more challenging for my more able Year 7s on the topic of ‘converting between Mixed Numbers and Improper Fractions’, so I put together this activity. Students are given a sequence of Mixed Numbers and Improper Fractions, and must tell me what (simplified) fraction must be added or subtracted at each step to reach the next number in the sequence. Solutions are provided.

This was inspired by an excellent resource on TES by MrMawson (https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/prime-factor-decomposition-logical-puzzle-11367345). I’ve used it with higher-attaining students, but wanted to adapt it to make it a bit more accessible to lower-attaining students. In each question, students are given 2 numbers. They should draw prime factor trees for each number and look for common prime factors. The common prime factors go in the middle boxes, and the remaining prime factors go in the boxes around the outside. Solutions are provided.

A Bronze/Silver/Gold differentiated resource where pupils are given a list of decimals and a square grid. Pupils have to put the decimals into the grid so that each row and column is in ascending order. In Bronze, the integer part of each decimal is the same. In Silver, the integer parts are different. In Gold, negatives are introduced. The grids get progressively larger as you move from Bronze to Gold as well. Each puzzle has multiple solutions, but I’ve provided one possible solution to each. Update 16/9/22: Changed the design of the tasks, but the content is the same.