How Many Squares 1?

A Maths Starter of The Day


How many Squares?
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Keywords: Starter | Puzzles | Shape

  • Quinetta, NH
  • Sunday, June 14, 2009
  • "My fiance and I just did this puzzle; me on paper and him in head. I got 44 and he got 46. Very fun though."
  • Class 5G, Derby
  • Thursday, January 28, 2010
  • "We think that Mrs Green is the cleverest teacher in the world as she got all 42!! 5G are quite celever too... :)."
  • Mrs Hill's Marvellous Maths Group - Form 5, Eversfield Preparatory School, Solihull
  • Friday, July 09, 2010
  • "We found all 42 squares easily. We went on to look at the chess board and found lots of squares...204 in total. What's more, we noticed lots of other really interesting patterns. Square numbers are clever things...and so are we!
    Mrs Hill's last ever maths lesson at Eversfield. :-(."

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This starter has scored a mean of 4.4 out of 5 based on 112 votes.

 

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Answer

42

The important thing is not the answer but the method you used to arrive at the answer. Did you have a structured approach? Were you sure that you had the right answer? Can you make up a puzzle like this for others to solve?

Extension Challenge

How many squares are there on a chess board?

Chess Board

A more difficult extension challenge would be to work out how many rectangles are on a chess board. The use of a spreadsheet might be useful when working on this problem.

Other shape counting starters:

How Many Squares 1? | How Many Squares 2?
How Many Triangles 1? | How Many Triangles 2? | How Many Triangles 3?
How Many Rectangles? | Rectangles Investigation | Icosahedron