Which group of four numbers, arranged in a square, has the largest total?
| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | |
| 1 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| 2 | 2 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 2 |
| 3 | 1 | 5 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 5 |
| 4 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 2 |
| 5 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 4 |
| 6 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 |
Which group of four numbers, arranged in a square, has the smallest total?
Starter of The Day Menu | Transum Software
How did you use this starter? Can you suggest
how teachers could present or develop this resource? Do you have any comments? It is always useful to receive
feedback and helps make this free resource even more useful for Maths teachers anywhere in the world.
Click here to enter your comments.
Keywords: Starter
| Arithmetic
| Mental Methods
Good, achieved the results I required
Satisfactory
Didn't really capture the interest of the students
Not for me! I wouldn't use this type of activity.
This starter has scored a mean of 3.6 out of 5 based on 23 votes.
Previous Day | This starter is for 3 July | Next Day
Visit the Transum
Online Shop
![]()
The largest total is 17. One place where this total can be seen is in cells:
| A5 | B5 |
| A6 | B6 |
The smallest total is 6. One place where this total can be seen is in cells:
| G3 | H3 |
| G4 | H4 |
Note to teacher: Doing this activity once with a class helps students develop strategies. It is only when they do this activity a second time that they will have the opportunity to practise those strategies. That is when the learning is consolidated. Click the button above to regenerate another version of this starter from random numbers.
![]() |
Teacher, do your students have one to one
access to computers? Whether your students each have a TabletPC or share a desktop PC, this activity lends itself to eLearning (Engaged Learning). |
|
Here's the URL which will take
them to a similar activity.