Investigation · Year 2

No Guessing Allowed

Number riddles where every clue narrows down the mystery number, so no guessing is allowed.

Read these statements to your child. Each set describes a specific number.

Can they work out what the number could be in each case?
2
Puzzle 1
The number…
- is higher than 4
- is lower than 10
- is an even number
- is between 5 and 8
Check the answer
6
3
Puzzle 2
The number…
- has 2 digits
- is less than a dozen
- is greater than 4
- has both digits the same
Check the answer
11
4
Puzzle 3
The number…
- is between 1 and 30
- has 2 digits
- is lower than 20
- has digits that sum to 8
Check the answer
17
5
Puzzle 4
The number…
- is higher than 3
- lies between 20 and 40
- has digits that sum to 9
- is an even number
Check the answer
36
Make your own
This kind of ‘problem solving’ is very valuable. It is even more useful when children have the confidence to create their own problems.

Now, ask your child to secretly think of a number and to create a set of statements… can you work out what number they are thinking of?

You can make this more challenging by encouraging them to use other number facts, such as: “the number is a multiple of 3”, or “the number has more tens than ones.”

Puzzle 1