You can look for all sorts of patterns, impose different rules for creating numbers, look for relationships amongst rows and columns...
So I stuck a massive one up on the wall.
(i) make any number using four 4s
(ii) make any number using five 5s
(iii) give an expression for any number based on where you see n
I should now explain the second point...
I love post-it notes.
Within one week of working at my NQT school, my head of department arrived in my room with 4 packs of post-its and 2 packs of mini post-its. Word travels fast.
To start with, I offered no incentive or reward for this challenge, yet pupils took it upon themselves to sporadically ask for post-its to complete a number that they'd worked out during the lesson.
A distraction? Possibly. But I can't see self-motivation to work on a number challenge as a bad thing.
