St Ives

A Maths Starter of The Day

CatAs I was going to St Ives
I met a man with seven wives
Every wife had seven sacks
Every sack had seven cats
Every cat had seven kittens
Kittens, cats, sacks, wives
How many were going to St Ives?

 

 

 

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Keywords: Starter | Riddles

  • Bethany Watkinson, Queen Elizabeths Highschool
  • Tuesday, February 26, 2008
  • "I thought this was a very hard starter but it would get children's minds into gear in the morning !"
  • Roger Waters, Heath Technology College, Runcorn
  • Wednesday, February 04, 2009
  • "I found this really useful in high school, because it made the children think as well as using basic computational skills. I was told about this web site by my daughter, who is doing her primary teacher training!"
  • Ks3 Student, Tabor Science College
  • Thursday, November 19, 2009
  • "This was a reall good problem to do in the morning as it made you think!!!"
  • MAK, NZ
  • Sunday, January 31, 2010
  • "An old 'chestnut!....But maybe the activity could be extended and used with older students to talk about powers of 7?"
  • Y5 Set 1, Martham Primary Sc Hool
  • Thursday, February 04, 2010
  • "Whole class was tricked!! But we got there in the end by acting out the situation."

    •  

  • Y7 Set 1, Welshpool High School
  • Friday, February 04, 2011
  • "A lovely starter, class got 1 straight away, however there was some debate over whether or not the answer was '0,' as the second from last line mentions all the characters apart from the person travelling to St Ives - so weren't sure if we should include him or not :-)."
  • Adrian,
  • Monday, February 07, 2011
  • "This one puzzle can have 2 different answers. It doesn't say that the man and his wives is traveling away from St Ive or towards."
  • Lauren, Gloucester
  • Tuesday, February 15, 2011
  • "My children in class didn't understand this starter at first but after I had shown them the actual answer there was only 1 person who got it correct."

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This starter has scored a mean of 3.9 out of 5 based on 103 votes.

 

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Answer

1

"As I was going to St Ives" is a traditional nursery rhyme which is generally thought to be a riddle. The earliest known published version of it dates to around 1730. The answer to the riddle is usually said to be one: the person reciting the rhyme is the only one who is explicitly stated as going to St Ives, and everyone else met by them assumed to be travelling the opposite direction. [Wikipedia]

 
Computer Teacher, do your students have access to computers?
Do you have "Laptops in Lessons"?

Whether your students each have a TabletPC or share a desktop PC, this activity lends itself to eLearning (Engaged Learning).

Laptop

Here is the URL which will take them to a concise version of this page.

Transum.org/go/?Start=February4

Students could use the Internet to find other mathematical puzzles, probles and riddles which have an interesting history.,