I have mentioned a number of times that we like to do quite a bit of Maths practice.  We realized fairly early that my daughter needed lots of maths practice so that she would be confident in maths (maths is just not an area that she is naturally confident in).  But we have seen over and over again that even thought she starts off unsure with a new maths concept, the more we practice it with her the more confident she gets and the less scary it becomes.  However Maths practice can get a bit boring and there is also a lot of different maths concepts so it is easy to focus on a few new ones and forget about something that we covered in the past (I am guilt of this – thinking oh we covered that and she was fine and then forgetting to revise it).  One of the activities that we have been doing with her for a little while now  – a bit of a Friday Maths Tradition –  are Maths puzzles / Maths Mysteries and she really likes the Maths Mystery pages from Twinkl Resources.

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(The photos above are from The Mystery of Saint George and the Knights’ Table)

It starts off with a little blurb that involves a mystery that needs to get solved – and they give you a list of possible “culprits” or “winners” along with a number of characteristics – so they break the list down into people who have long hair vs short hair, or wear red gloves, possibly have a certain pet, who may like a certain drink something along those lines.

Then there are 4 clues ie maths challenges.  By solving each maths challenge the kids get a clue which helps then to eliminate some of the suspects.  (The clues in the photos below are from The Mystery of the Pirate Captain)

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The Maths Mysteries that we have tried covered a wide range of Maths concepts and it really is just a fun way to include some maths practice.

We tend to choose the maths mysteries based on the mystery that needs to be solves – ie we might choose a history looking mystery, or one that is linked to a holiday like Christmas or Easter.  This way we just work through the Maths challenges regardless of what the topics are which tends to be great revision and sometimes highlights an area that we need to revisit.  But I have also waded through the mystery pages and selected one of them specifically so we could practice a new Maths concept that we had just finished working on.  Either way it is Maths practice that is a lot more interesting than straight forward worksheets and makes for a nice end of the week maths session.

If you have a Twinkl membership you can use these links to see the different Maths Mystery pages that they have.

Maths Mystery pages aimed at Key Stage 1 ages

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Maths Mystery pages aimed at Key Stage 2 ages

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The Maths Mystery pages are part of the paid for Twinkl Classic Package.