Family Mathematics Problem Solving
Sponsored by
The Somerville Mathematics Fund
The Family Mathematics problems are written for adults and children to work on together. They are not meant as another homework to be turned in to your child’s teacher, instead it is an opportunity for you to work together to solve a mathematical problem. In honor of the many holidays during the last eleven days of December this year, we have a puzzle based on the word holiday. We hope you will enjoy working together to solve these problems. The solutions will be printed in next week’s Somerville Journal. Enjoy.
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The Somerville Mathematics Fund was founded in 2000 to celebrate and encourage mathematics achievement in the city of Somerville. We offer scholarships to students and grants to teachers.
For more information, to volunteer, to make a contribution, call 617-666-0666 (evenings)
or e-mail voolich@aol.com

From December 2003    
All Grades


Family Mathematics Problem Solving: All Grades

The Holiday Problem

How many different ways can you write HOLIDAY using the chart below? You need to start with the H and can only move to the right or down (not to the left or up).

 
H            
O O          
L L L        
I I I I      
D D D D D    
A A A A A A  
Y Y Y Y Y Y Y


Based on the patterns you noticed while figuring out the number of ways of writing HOLIDAY above, predict the number of ways to write each of the following words if they were each written in the same chart form:
Hannukkah, Christmas Day, Kwanzaa, Boxing Day and New Years Eve.
May you enjoy this holiday season.



Other Problem Solving Sources:
http://mathforum.org/pow/
http://www.figurethis.org/index40.htm
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