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You probably know that half of 12 is six. But the other day, I caught a glimpse of a clock peeking between buildings. At that moment, I noticed that sometimes, half of 12 is seven. How is this possible?

When you multiply a whole number by itself, you get a square number. When you take three copies of a whole number and multiply them all together, you get a cube number. There’s only one two digit number that is both a square and a cube. Can you work out what number it is?

Jenny’s hard at work on a building site. This problem will tax her brain as well as her brawn!

Terri’s just about to leave to go to a party. She’s trying to work out whether to walk or ride her bike. If she walks at a brisk pace of 5 kilometres per hour, she’ll be an hour late. If she rides her bike at 10 kilometres per hour, she’ll be an hour early!

You’ve just received a secret coded message: AD, BA, BH, CE, DB, DI, EF You know it follows a pattern, but can you work out what pair of letters come next?

1936 is a square number. That means you can make it by multiplying a whole number by itself: 1936 = 44 x 44

Fred’s teacher has a weird way of marking tests. He gives five marks for a right answer, but subtracts one for a wrong one. Fred answered 20 questions on a test and got 70 marks. How many questions did Fred get right?

See if you can work out this puzzle. You might like to use an advent calendar to solve it, or maybe you could work it out in your head first!

Mario has a whole pizza that hasn’t been cut. He cuts the pizza in half, and then cuts each of those pieces in half to make four pieces. He then cuts all of those slices in half, and then those in half and so on.