A Cross-Number Puzzle based on Booga Booga (a Roblox game). The Pupil Information Sheet provides: the effect of various tools (Axes, Rock etc) on health, facts about different Trees and Bushes, facts about a Campfire. Students are required to interpret the clues, extract relevant data from the Information Sheet and then to do the necessary calculations (manually or with calculator) Students who are not familiar with the game will not be at a disadvantage as the puzzle is self-contained. The Teacher Guide gives the answers by means of a completed grid. An indication of the difficulty level of the calculations required is given. This allows the teacher to easily judge whether or not calculators should be used.

This cross-number puzzle is based on Factorio which is a real-time factory simulation computer game. Factories are built to produce various items from resources. The icons of all the resources and products used in the puzzle are shown and named on Information Sheet No1. Some of the production processes from the game are shown on the Information Sheets. Each process requires 1, 2 or 3 ingredients and the length of time in seconds to complete each process is also given. Students are required to interpret the clues, extract relevant data from the Information Sheets and then to do the necessary calculations (manually or with calculator) Students who are not familiar with the game will not be at a disadvantage as the puzzle is self-contained. The Teacher Guide gives the answers by means of a completed puzzle grid. The actual calculations required to solve each clue are given. This allows the teacher to easily judge the difficulty level involved and whether calculators should be allowed. There are also descriptions and suggestions for use in the classroom and for further extension work. PC Gamer praised Factorio, calling it “a manufacturing masterpiece” and it has now sold over 2·5 million copies. It is an extremely creative and highly educational game.

To complete these cross-number puzzle grids students will use their knowledge of the sequence of square numbers. The clues for Puzzle A include index notation and phrases like: “the square of 3”, “3 squared” and “the 3rd square number”. In the Teacher’s Guide are outlines of different classroom approaches e.g.calculation based or geometrical pattern based. The student sheet includes geometrical diagrams of the square number sequence. Puzzle B involves calculating sums and differences of square numbers and would be useful preparation for Pythagoras’ Theorem calculations. Full solutions are included in the Teacher’s Guide.

These Hexceed Puzzles require simple logical deduction from the clues given to find the position of ‘Danger Hexes’ in a small irregular grid of hexagons. The puzzle is completed by adding missing numbers in the ‘Clue Hexes’. The puzzle is solved when all Hexes are filled. Each Student Puzzle Sheet has a diagrammatic explanation at the top of the sheet so should be self contained. The package consists of three Student Puzzle Sheets and three accompanying Teacher Notes. The Teacher Notes contain the full solution to all the Puzzles along with some useful suggestions for the class use of the Puzzle Sheets. There are also suggestions for extension work. You will find a more elaborate on-line version of the Hexceed Puzzle free to play on the Steam platform. Search term: “hexceed”. I hope your students enjoy solving these Puzzle. Your feedback would be welcome.

A Cross-Number Puzzle based on Factory Town Tycoon (a Roblox game). The pupil’s Information Sheet provides: buying prices for 5 types of goods; numbers of goods required to build a selection of items; a simple production line example. Students are required to interpret the clues, extract relevant data from the Information Sheet and then to do the necessary calculations (manually or with calculator) Students who are not familiar with the game will not be at a disadvantage as the puzzle is self-contained. The Teacher’s Guide gives the answers by means of a completed grid. The actual calculations required to solve each clue are given. This allows the teacher to easily judge the difficulty level involved and whether calculators should be allowed. There are also descriptions and suggestions for use in the classroom and for further extension work.

Chinese characters, Chinese number system, place value, cross-cultural, cross-number puzzle. To complete this cross-number puzzle students will be required to learn to recognise traditional Chinese number characters and to understand the place value system (base 10) that the Chinese use. A teacher's guide gives the necessary background and possible approaches. The answer is provided.

Magic squares, tetrominoes, pentominoes, dissection puzzle, magic number. These two puzzles involve the student cutting out a set of tetromino or pentomino shapes with numbers on them. The task is to reconstruct a magic square using the pieces. A teachers guide suggests various approaches to the puzzle, one of which involves an investigation of what the 'magic number' will be. Answers are provided.

Chinese characters, Chinese number system, place value, cross-cultural, cross-number puzzle. To complete this cross-number puzzle students are required to translate familiar arabic numbers into Chinese character numbers and to write these characters in the grid. A teacher's guide gives the necessary background and possible approaches. The answer is provided. This activity would follow naturally from my resource: Chinese Numbers No1.

Number bases, decimal system, place value, number puzzle, reflection. This worksheet introduces a novel 'numeric language' using 'reverse notation'. The digits 6, 7, 8 and 9 are banned. The allowed digits may be written in reverse (mirror image). Students should be given time to explore the given examples to see if they can discover the method. Four graded tasks are given. There is a detailed teacher's guide along with the answers to the tasks. Students love this activity!

Linear equation solving, solutions. Students are required to solve simple linear equations then write the value of the solution in the crossword grid. The nature of the task encourages students to check their solutions. The teacher's guide gives some advice concerning strategies. The answer is provided.

Number bases, decimal system, place value, number puzzle, reflection, addition & subtraction of integers. This Cross-Number puzzle involves the use of a novel 'reverse notation' or 'looking glass arithmetic'. Students should be encouraged to investigate and discover rules for adding and subtracting digimirror numbers. A detailed teacher's guide is included which suggests possible classroom approaches. Answers are provided. My resource 'Digimirror Maths' would be a natural introduction to this activity.

This is a cross-number puzzle that requires Web searches to find the necessary information. Much of it involves finding information about special numbers e.g. Armstrong Numbers, Golden Primes, Repfigits, Vampire numbers and their Fangs, Tribonacci Numbers, Beastly Numbers, Smith Numbers and the Smith Brothers. Primes, squares, cubes and perfect numbers also get a look in along with the idea of permutations. And who is Kaprekar and what is his routine? A demanding fun-packed puzzle that should keep able pupils busy for at least a period! The answer is also supplied.

A diagram of incomplete factor trees is given. Students have to complete these. There is an extra puzzle task given in the Teacher's guide for those that complete this worksheet early. The answers are supplied.

Completion of this cross-number puzzle involves evaluation of algebraic expressions involving squaring and the use of brackets. Most of the calculations can be performed without the use of a calculator. Students should be encouraged to only use a calculator as a final checking process. There is also a double-check built in due to the overlapping structure of the cross-number grid so students should be encouraged to calculate all the clues not just a minimal set. The answers and further suggestions are provided in the teacher's guide.

This activity worksheet involves patterns of regularly increasing arrangements of dots. Students are required to calculate the number of dots in a given arrangement further along the pattern. They are then asked to generalise to “Pattern n”. A detailed Teacher’s Guide outlines different ways this resource may be used. Students should be encouraged to be creative and find different calculations methods which will lead to different algebraic forms. This then naturally leads to the algebraic simplification of the resulting expressions.

Two cross-number puzzles are provided in this resource. The main aim is for students to learn to read and write numbers using the Roman numeral system. To complete these puzzles the student will need to translate numbers from the Roman numeral system to their familiar decimal system, perform some basic calculations and then translate their answer back into the Roman numeral system. The Teacher’s Guide provides the answers to both puzzles along with some explanations of how the Roman number system works. There are also suggestions for further investigative work and a web-link to more activities.

A fun activity involving a self-referential property of number names as written in English. A structured diagram has to be completed correctly with the names of the numbers from 1 to 20. This is not a straightforward task and lends itself to plenty of discussion. The Teacher's Guide gives "the rule" along with the completed diagram. There is also advice given on approaches to using the resource along with many suggestions for further investigational activities.