Since my nephews were little I've asked them maths questions when I see them. It took Connor (now 8) a while to realise he was being 'tricked' into doing them but I still managed to get him to work out the answers by telling him, "This one is REALLY hard, you'll never get the right answer".

Tonight, after watching an episode of Dara O'Briain's School of Hard Sums he started to do some puzzles and asked me to show him one. So I gave him a simple 3 x 3 magic square. I'm sure I was about 11 when I was shown the 'rule' for completing them, so I solved the 5 x 5 grid, just to show I could. I've left him with the logic of how to solve them & I've told him I'll test him next time.

Now I've got to remember to start asking 6 year old Jamie similarly tricky questions.