Christmas maths fillers are useful for those spare moments during these busy weeks in school. Here are a few short, one-off simple activities that can be done with only paper and crayons. They are interesting, fun maths tasks providing an opportunity for exploration and problem solving.
• Advent calendar designs challenge
A printer wants to make rectangle advent calendars with 24 square doors.
How many different rectangle advent calendars can you make?
Draw rectangles with 24 sqaures on squared paper and write the numbers 1-24 on each square door.
Make other shapes with 24 squares. Can you make the shapes symmetrical?
• Advent additions
How many pairs of doors can you find that total 25?
25th December is the date of Christmas day.
Can you find a set of 3 doors that total 25? How many sets of 3 doors total 25?
Investigate other sets of doors (4, 5, 6... doors) that total 25.
• Christmas Alphabet
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Use the code to find Christmas decade words that total 10, 20, 30, 40 ...
T U R K E Y is a 'total 100' word
20+21+18+11+5+15
Can you find other 'total 100' words?
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How much paper is needed to make a parcel?
Make different cuboids with 36 interlocking cubes, how much paper is needed for each one?
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