The following collection of resources have been assembled by the TES Maths Panel. They can be downloaded for free by registering on the TES website.
TES Maths panel member Claire Green picks some of her favourite resources to help teach Factors, Multiples and Primes.
Factors, multiples and primes are not the most exciting things to teach but they are important to the understanding of numbers and that’s why it’s handy to have a range of ways to teach this topic.
Factors, multiples and primes: Follow me cards
Age range: 11 – 16
This resource is a classroom favourite. 32 cards to place around your room for students to run around and consolidate their knowledge of factors, multiples and primes. Great as a starter, main activity or simply for revision.
Perfect numbers
Age range: 11 – 14
An interesting idea to get pupils to think about factors. It explores the idea of perfect numbers. Not sure what they are, click on the link and find out, I didn’t know either! This simple idea will have students practising their factors and addition while trying to find the next perfect number after six.
Find your factors class activity
Age range: 11 – 16
I love this activity, it’s all about exploring numbers and having fun too. Students are given a number and have to link up with another student who is carrying a factor of their number. The activity suggests using the numbers from 2-20. It becomes quite a complex web but this will only add to the humour. There’s also a set of interesting questions to pose to your class to get them thinking about what they’ve just done – there are many possibilities for extension here too.
Factors and multiples game
Age range: 11 – 14
A game for two students to play against each other using their knowledge of factors and multiples. A student picks a number between 1-100 to start and crosses it off, the second student can now cross off a number which is either a multiple or factor of that number and so on…This game has massive scope for investigations including ‘is there a number you can start from which will lead to all the numbers being crossed off?’, ‘what is the smallest number of moves for a win and why?’.
Factors, multiples and primes bingo
Age range: 11 – 16
Everyone loves a good game of bingo! This one asks includes some interesting questions to pose to pupils once someone has won. There’s also scope to change the questions to make the game shorter or longer. Great for revision with KS4 pupils.
Prime magic
Age range: 11 – 14
Similar to magic squares but with this resource pupils have to place the numbers 1-9 in a 3×3 grid so the rows and columns add up to a prime number.
Factors and multiples true/false quiz
Age range: 11 – 14
Great little game of true/false which can be used as a starter or plenary to check pupil understanding. A great extension would be to get pupils to come up with their own questions to test a friend.
Two primes make one square
Age range: 11 – 14
Great little activity for pupils. Can they make all the square numbers between 4 and 20 by adding two prime numbers together? This can then be extended to bigger square numbers and are there any square numbers that can’t be made by adding two prime numbers together?
Tarsia for HCF, LCM and Prime factorisation
Age range: 14 – 16
Everyone loves a tarsia puzzle and this one is tricky. Pupils need to match up HCF, LCM and prime factorisation with the numbers/questions on the puzzle. Definitely one for the older students.
Factors and multiples puzzle
Age range: 11 – 16
Pupils need to place the correct headings (such as prime numbers, factors of 60, etc) around a 5×5 grid before filling it with the correct numbers to satisfy the rows and columns. This resource suggests it is for A level students but it’s also suitable for KS3 and 4 students too. For lower school pupils you could fill in the headings for and they then just have to deal with the numbers. It’s definitely one for pupils to do in pairs as it is quite tricky, but it will get them thinking.