Starter of The Day Menu | Transum Software | Privacy Policy
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.
Keywords: Starter
| Arithmetic
The sums we had were 49 (which was easy) and 262 (which took longer to do).
It was a good starter."
8x7=56 then
16+18x5=170 finally
56+170=226.
i really liked this starter of the day and would like to see more like this!"
Good, achieved the results I required
Satisfactory
Didn't really capture the interest of the students
Not for me! I wouldn't use this type of activity.
This starter has scored a mean of 3.3 out of 5 based on 41 votes.
Visit the Transum
Online Shop
![]()

Answer
One possible solution is
2 x 12 + 2(17 - 8) = 42
Are there any others?
What strategies did you use?
Did you use your head, paper or a calculator?
Or did you use all three?
Could a computer help solve this problem?
Would you improve if you practised solving problems like this?
How could a group of students efficiently work together on a problem like his?
Note to teacher: Doing this activity once with a class helps students develop strategies. It is only when they do this activity a second time that they will have the opportunity to practise those strategies. That is when the learning is consolidated. Click the button above to regenerate another version of this starter from random numbers.
The blue cards with numbers on can be dragged around the screen when considering different possibilities.