A Maths Starter of The Day

Sea Shells

Sebastian and Sara collect sea shells. Sebastian began a holiday with 650 shells and Sara began with 20 shells.

Each day of the holiday Sebastian found 29 shells and Sara found 59 shells on the beach. By the end of the holidays they had the same number of shells in total.

How long was the holiday?

Shell Shell Shell Shell Shell

Starter of The Day Transum Mathematics Topics


Topics: Starter | Algebra | Problem Solving | Sequences

  • The Best Maths Class Ever 7cd/M2, King Alfred's College Oxfordshire
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  • I felt that there was a good use of algebra in this starter. Most of the people in our class did not understand this starter. But the majority of us got there in the end.
  • Mr Bell, Holryrood
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  • We here at holyrood thought it was cool fun but a few thought that it could be better if it was more challenging as the pupils enjoy this type of puzzle.
  • Best Maths Class In The Universe, Dulwich College Beijing
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  • My Year 4 class enjoyed solving this puzzle! We got the correct solution! Well done David and Scott for working it out in super fast time!
  • Transum,
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  • It is interesting that this starter has been enjoyed by pupils of different ages finding the answer in a way that is supported by their current level of mathematical understanding. This problem can be solved in many different ways including using a spreadsheet to generate the two number sequences. Don't forget to rethe page to get a different of numbers.
  • Professor Leonard, Austentach, Germany
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  • My class found this vey fun indeed, it was not very challenging and I hoped for a more complicated challenge next time. Well done to Benjamin for figuring this one out in lightning quick time.

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.
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Answers

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Note to teacher: Doing this activity once with a class helps students develop strategies. It is only when they do this activity a second time that they will have the opportunity to practise those strategies. That is when the learning is consolidated. Click the button above to regenerate another version of this starter from random numbers.

Online Maths Shop
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=May15

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 equation generating page.

Transum.org/go/?Num=19

Student Activity

 

 

Curriculum Reference

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

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