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© 2012 Number Loving
Christmas
Mysteries
How many elves?
In this task students must use knowledge of number,
percentages and time to work out how many elves Santa
needs to hire to make all the Christmas gifts on time!
White Christmas
In this task students have to use the clues to work out where
in the UK is most likely to have a white Christmas this year.
All data is accurate. Students could then plot the places on a
map to see if they notice any patterns in the probabilities
they have calculated
For more resources like this,
visit numberloving.co.uk
© 2012 Number Loving
How many Elves?
Work out how many elves
Santa needs
to hire to
make all the
UK
Christmas
gifts on
time!
Elves work 9am
to 5pm
Santa usually makes
one gift for each
child
The Elves have an
hour break at
lunchtime
Elves who have
Santa has 100
worked before are elves who worked
20% faster
last year
Elves work all 52
weeks of the year
but not on weekends
The elves have a ½
hour break in the
afternoon for a
mince pie
There are
11,000,000
children in the UK
Each elf can make
one gift every 4
minutes
Gifts also need
wrapping
Each elf can wrap
one gift in one
minute
For more resources like this,
visit numberloving.co.uk
© 2012 Number Loving
White Christmas
Use the clues to work
out the probability of
it snowing on
Christmas
day around
the world
London has had snow
on 3 Christmas days in
the last 50 years
York has a 0.01
higher probability to
Bradford is less likely
have snow
than Birmingham to
than
have snow
Birmingham
Bradford has had four
more Christmases with
snow than London in
the last 50 years
The chance of Glasgow
having snow is at least
18% less than Aberdeen
Birmingham has a 0.01
higher probability to
have snow than
Bradford
Glasgow has at least
11% more chance of a
white Christmas than
Belfast
London is less likely
to have snow than
Birmingham
Belfast has had
300% more snow
than London on
Christmas day
A ‘white Christmas’ in the
UK is classed as snow
falling at anytime during
the 24hours of December
the 25th
Aberdeen has had 53 white
Christmases in the last
century
For more resources like this,
visit numberloving.co.uk
© 2012 Number Loving
Solutions
How many elves: Solution
Each gift takes 4 minutes to make + 1 minute to wrap = 5 minutes
But for an elf who worked before this is 20% less so 4 minutes
Each elf works 6.5 hours per day x 5 days per week x 52 weeks per year = 1690
hours per year = 101400 minutes
The 100 elves who worked last year have 100 x 101400 minutes = 10140000
minutes in total
This means they can make 10,140,000 ÷ 4 = 2,535,000 gifts
This leaves 8,465,000 gifts
8,465,000 x 5 = 42,325,000 minutes needed in total
Therefore 42,325,000 ÷ 101,400 = 418 more elves
White Christmas: Solution
London 6%
Bradford 14%
Birmingham 15%
York 16%
Belfast 24%
Glasgow 35%
Aberdeen 53%