Keywords: Starter | Combinations | Probability

• Ice Cream, 8X1 Durrington High School
• Thursday, October 18, 2007
• "We would have preferred this starter if we had had enough ice cream scoops to show all possibilties!"
• Eugenie, Greys Education Centre
• Thursday, October 25, 2007
• "Are you sure of the answer? If there are 6 flavours and 2 scoops per cone there should be 6x5/2 = 15 combinations. Or what am I missing?"
• Transum,
• Friday, October 26, 2007
• "Thanks Eugenie for pointing out the error in the original answer below. It has now been corrected though we are assuming that two scoops of the same flavour is allowed."
• Mrs Simpson and 2D1, Torry Academy, Aberdeen
• Wednesday, November 07, 2007
• "We spent the whole lesson investigating triangular numbers and constructing formulae from this lesson starter. Our class enjoyed it very much!"
• Miss Nimmo, Park View Community School, Chester-le-Street
• Saturday, November 24, 2007
• "This starter was a bit disapointing because there was not enough scoops of ice-cream and if there was there would not of been enough cones for what we came up with so I will not be using this again."
• Katherine Morelli-Batters,
• Thursday, July 17, 2008
• "I would like to say I got 28 solutions and it says there are only 21!"
• Mrs Wallace, Blenheim High School
• Tuesday, November 04, 2008
• "I had no trouble finding just 21 solutions. Make sure you read the question carefully. A cone is not different if turning it around makes it the same as another cone. A good starter."
• Mr Heeley's Y 7 stars, NLC, Huddersfield
• Wednesday, November 12, 2008
• "Reece adopted a systematic method from the start and helped everybody to get started. We thought this was a cushtie starter; it made us hungry for more!
  In fact, we thought this was so nICE we sCREAMed with delight!!
  Lots of love to you all at Transum xxxx"
• Christine Pardo and 5P, ISH
• Wednesday, November 12, 2008
• "I am slightly concerend at the number of (presumably trained) teachers writing in saying they got the wrong answer!! What hope do the pupils have??!! My class and I thought this was a great starter; it's fun and enourgaes children to read questions carefully and record their answers systematically. Excellent!"
• Tegan Googum, class, 5S1, Victory Ocean State Skewl
• Tuesday, December 09, 2008
• "We could only find fifteen different combinations!
  This is a mind bending activity."
• Mr Taylor, Gartree High School, Leics, UK
• Tuesday, November 10, 2009
• "My classes enjoyed this starter, although I didn't notice the solution diagram at the bottom of the page untill after I'd taught two classes. My lower ability groups liked being able to make the combinations on the cones, but it was a bit laborious for the groups that got the hang of it quickly.
  Perhaps there could be a link at the top of each page that takes you straight to the answer, rather than having to scroll down the page manually, past all the comments."
• D. Bracher, Bacton Community Middle School
• Thursday, November 12, 2009
• "A very good starter. Ethan says "why wasn't your answer in the shape of a cone?"."
• ACD, Rainham
• Friday, November 13, 2009
• "My high & low ability classes really enjoyed this starter. Maybe the answer could include a 6*6 sample space diagram showing all the possible combinations. This could be used to show how 15 of the combinations were duplicates because the order was unimportant.
  Excellent starter."
• David Bracher, Bacton Community Middle School
• Friday, November 13, 2009
• "My class thought this was a great starter. I am a little concerned, however, that Miss Pardo sholuld comment on trained teachers' failure to get the right answer when she failed to spell 'concerned' and 'encourages' correctly! To quote her, "what chance have the children if their teachers cannot spell?" We all make mistakes, so don't be so superior!"
• K.Ward, Wolverhampton
• Sunday, November 22, 2009
• "There are definately 21 combinations. If you work systematically. My class got into quite a heated debate but came up with 21 eventually."

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.
Click here to enter your comments.

If you don't have the time to provide feedback we'd really appreciate it if you could give this page a score! We are constantly improving and adding to these starters so it would be really helpful to know which ones are most useful. Simply click on a button below:

This starter has scored a mean of 3.9 out of 5 based on 46 votes.

Previous Day | This starter is for 12 November | Next Day