Year 6 Place Value, Addition and Subtraction - Problem-Solving Investigations

These in-depth maths investigations are open-ended problem solving activities for Year 6 children.

In-depth Investigation: Giant Domino Addition
Children follow a logic to convert arrangements of dominoes to numbers, and then perform a giant addition. They then create their own domino additions and explore addition patterns.

In-depth Investigation: Nine AGAIN
Children subtract 5-digit numbers and look for patterns in the digital roots.

In-depth Investigation: Noughts and Negatives
Children play an adapted game of noughts and crosses, aiming to get negative number answers.

In-depth Investigation: All at 6s and 7s
Children try to make every number to at least 10 using 6, 7 and sometimes 2 and 3, and any operations.

These investigations will develop maths meta-skills, support open-ended questioning and logical reasoning, and enable children to learn to think mathematically and articulate mathematical ideas.

These problem-solving investigations come from our Year 6 Maths Blocks. Each Hamilton maths block contains a complete set of planning and resources to teach a term’s worth of objectives for one of the National Curriculum for England’s maths areas.