Missing Digit Detective: A Brain-Boosting Maths Game

Can You Crack the Code?

Put your child’s logic and calculation skills to the test with Missing Digit Detective! This challenging and engaging online game is perfect for children in Upper Key Stage 2 (ages 9-11) who are working on their formal calculation methods.

Presented with a “case file,” players must investigate a column calculation that has several digits missing. By using their knowledge of number, logic, and inverse operations, they must drag the correct digits into the empty spaces to solve the puzzle and crack the case!

Advice for Parents: Becoming a Top Detective

“Missing Digit Detective” is a fantastic way to deepen your child’s understanding of the mechanics behind the four operations. Here’s how you can support them:

• Encourage “Thinking Backwards”: This game is all about inverse operations. If a digit is missing from one of the top numbers in a column addition, ask, “How could we use subtraction to work that out?” (e.g., “If the answer is 7 and we have a 4, what’s 7 take away 4?”).
• Talk Through the Columns: Work from right to left, just like in a formal calculation. Ask questions about each column, such as, “What do we need to add to 3 to make 8?” or “In the tens column, what happens if we need to ‘carry over’ or ‘exchange’ a number?”
• Use Pencil and Paper: For more complex puzzles, especially with multiplication, encourage your child to work out the problem on paper alongside the game. This bridges the gap between the on-screen puzzle and their classroom work.
• Celebrate the Logic: Praise your child not just for getting the right answer, but for the logical steps they took to get there. Saying “That was clever how you used the answer to work out the missing number” builds their confidence as a mathematical thinker.

Meeting National Curriculum Objectives

This game is specifically designed to provide engaging practice for key objectives in the UK’s National Curriculum for Mathematics for Upper Key Stage 2.

For Year 5 Children, the game helps to:

• Add and subtract whole numbers with more than 4 digits, using formal written methods (columnar addition and subtraction).
• Multiply numbers up to 4 digits by a one- or two-digit number using a formal written method, including long multiplication for two-digit numbers.
• Solve addition and subtraction multi-step problems in contexts, deciding which operations and methods to use and why.
• Use rounding to check answers to calculations and determine, in the context of a problem, levels of accuracy.

For Year 6 Children, the game helps to:

• Multiply multi-digit numbers up to 4 digits by a two-digit whole number using the formal written method of long multiplication.
• Divide numbers up to 4 digits by a two-digit whole number using the formal written method of long division (when subtraction puzzles are generated).
• Perform mental calculations, including with mixed operations and large numbers.
• Use their knowledge of the order of operations to carry out calculations involving the four operations.
• Solve problems involving addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

By providing a puzzle-based format, “Missing Digit Detective” makes practising formal methods feel less like a drill and more like a fun, rewarding challenge.