Snowman and Woman

Moving from snowflake to snowflake from left to right, in how many different ways can you spell out the word "Snowman"?

A Mathematics Lesson Starter Of The Day


Topics: Starter | Combinations | Problem Solving | Xmas

You can find many more ChristMaths activities at:

Transum.org/ChristMaths/

ChristMaths

  • Transum,
  •  
  • After solving this problem I have asked pupils questions such as "how many ways can you get from this classroom to the front of school without backtracking", "How many ways can you get from the bottom left corner of a chess board to the top right by only moving right or up?" and, for the more advanced, "What similarities does the solution to this problem have with Pascal's Triangle?"

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.

Previous Day | This starter is for 21 December | Next Day

 

Note to teacher: You can click on the letters in the snowflake diagram above to show different ways of spelling snowman.

Answers

Sign in to your Transum subscription account to see the answers

There is a printable worksheet to go with this activity.

Worksheet

Imagine a similar diagram for "SnowWoman".
How many ways?

What about SnowElephant!?

Snow Elephant


Laptops In Lessons

Teacher, do your students have access to computers such as tablets, iPads or Laptops?  This page was really designed for projection on a whiteboard but if you really want the students to have access to it here is a concise URL for a version of this page without the comments:

Transum.org/go/?Start=December21

However it would be better to assign one of the student interactive activities below.

Laptops In Lessons

Here is the URL which will take them to an interactive Christmas activity.

Transum.org/go/?to=XmasTrim

Student Activity

 

Curriculum Reference

See the National Curriculum page for links to related online activities and resources.


Transum.org is a proud supporter of the kidSAFE Seal Program