Maths problems using Christmas fun

While Christmas is a little while away, it will be here before we know it. So we'll share some of our favourite maths problems - combining maths and Christmas that will certainly get the students equally enthused about the two topics. These are for grades 1 and 2 - we'll share problems for higher grades throughout the month so stay tuned.

Whizzing Yoyos
Mrs White wants to give every one of the 20 children in her class a whizzing yoyo for the Christmas
yoyo trick competition but she doesn’t know how many packets of yoyos to buy.

There are 4 whizzing yoyos in a packet and each packet costs $5. How much will it cost her to buy
the yoyos?

Lucky Dip

Mrs White bought 6 bags of lucky dip prizes and found that there were 4 prizes in each bag. She

wants to share the toys fairly into three lucky dip barrels.

How many toys should she put into each barrel?

Secret Santa

I need to buy 12 Christmas cards for the secret Santa we are having in the staff room and I was wondering which will be cheaper, buying cards in packets of 2 for $5,or packets of 3 cards for $6.60. Oh I just noticed that the packets of 6 glitter cards for $18 are marked down $3.

Which cards should I buy?

Xmas Muffins

I found this decorated Christmas muffin recipe. It says that for 6 muffins you need 36 stars, 18

walnuts and 12 silver balls.

I want to make 24 muffins though. So how many stars, walnuts and silver balls will I need to decorate the tops with?

Santa’s Reindeers

Santa’s nine reindeers are ready to be harnessed to his sleigh.

The leading reindeer is on his own and after that they are harnessed in 2 lines of 4, making 4 rows of 2. But where should they be placed?

Reindeers with the same initial quarrel so badly that there has to at least one row of other reindeers between them. These reindeers are also arranged alphabetically, front to back.

In each row, the reindeers are arranged alphabetically left to right. For example, Prancer would be to the left of Rudolf if they were in the same row, which they are not, and Prancer would be to the right of Comet if they were in the same row, which they are not. The reindeers that come first and last alphabetically are such close friends that they have to be in a row together.