School Name

Maths Department

Christmas Puzzles
And
Activities

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Christmas Table
Some members of the Maths Department are sitting at a round table ready
to enjoy their Christmas dinner.
DAVE is two along from ANNE, who is sitting next to BOB.
CLAIRE is also sitting two along from ANNE.
Next to CLAIRE is EDDIE.
DAVE has EDDIE on one side and FRED on the other.
Where is everyone sitting?

FRED

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No sunshine
On Christmas Eve, in the middle of the night, a woman woke up to find
that it was snowing.
"I'm not surprised," she said to her husband.
"Well it is Winter," said the husband. "But I can confidently say that in 24
hours time, there will still be no sign of sunshine."
How can he be so sure?

Christmas Party
GEMMA, IAN and HARRY each won a prize at a Christmas party.
GEMMA gave her chocolate to IAN in exchange for her water pistol.
GEMMA then changed with HARRY for the book. Then IAN and
HARRY swapped prizes.
1. Who now has the chocolate?
2. Who now has the water pistol?
3. Who now has the book?

How Old is Santa?

Once again at the North Pole, it's Christmas time! Frosty the Elf
is Santa's right-hand man! He is in charge of all the elves in
Santa's Workshop.
Santa is Eighty years younger than three
times Frosty the Elf's age. If you add twice
Santa's age to three times Frosty the Elf's
age, the total is six hundred and five.
This Christmas, can you work out:
How old is Santa?
How old is Frosty the Elf?
Hint: You need to use simultaneous equations to
solve it. This one is quite difficult!

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Christmas Values
Each of the symbols in the grid has a value, which is a whole number
from 1 to 8. Each of the eight numbers is only used once. The numbers
given are the totals for each row and column. Each symbol has the same
value wherever it appears.

23

18

21

35

29

34

24

30
2
9
2
8
3
5
2
8
1
9
3
0
1
3
3
2

Find the number that each symbol represents.

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Christmas Tree
Find the total area of the Christmas tree shown below. You will need to
measure the dimensions of each shape, give your dimensions to the
nearest millimetre.

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Santas Present Predicament

Its Christmas Eve and Santa still has several presents left to deliver.
However, due to a particularly snowy spell a few miles back, Santas
notes about which house gets what gift are lost. He can remember all of
the childrens names (Janet, Karen, Laura, Mark & Neil) and a quick look
in his bag revealed what gifts are left (a set of books, a scooter, an XBox,
a pair of roller blades and a box of cartoon DVDs), but he can only recall
snippets of his notes about delivering them. From the clues below can
you figure out who lives in which house (A through E) and what present
each child gets?
Janet asked for the books.
Laura did not ask for a gift that has any wheels on it.
Neither Lauras nor Marks house is on a corner.
The child in house E asked for the roller blades.
The roller blades and the DVDs both go to boys.
The boys do not live next door to each other.
If you mixed the colour of Karens house with the colour of Neils,
youd have the colour of Marks.
Laura lives closer to Marks house than Janet does.

Blue

Purple

Green

Yellow

Red

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Talking Snowmen

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All the words in the Snowman language consist of exactly seven letters
formed from the letters {s, no, wm, an} arranged in some order where the
paired letters cannot be separated. For example snonono and
sssanwm are words in the language but sssmwan and sssawmn are
not. How many words are there in the Snowman language?

Wrapping Gifts
A box of size a cm by b cm by c cm is to be wrapped with a square
shaped piece of wrapping paper. Cutting the paper is not allowed so what
is the smallest square this sheet can be?
Now suppose we want to wrap up a cube, what is the smallest square of
wrapping paper that can be used to minimise wastage?

Christmas Trees
Christmas trees are planted in a rectangular array of 10 rows and 12
columns. The farmer chooses the shortest tree in each of the columns and
then marks the tallest of these 12 shortest trees with a letter A. Then the
farmer chooses the tallest tree from each of the rows and marks the
shortest of these 10 tallest trees with a letter B. Which is the taller tree, A
or B?

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