Yr 2 maths question

[petitdonkey]

DS had his maths homework tonight;

'There are 4 flavours of ice cream - vanilla, strawberry, chocolate and mint. How many different 3 scoop ice creams can you buy?'

There are then 19 images of cones with three scoops on top - ds has come up with 20 combinations that seem correct. I realise there must be a formula to work it out but I have never been much good at them - what is the correct answer???

(I'm not going to change his work I'm just interested as to how it could have been worked out)

One of the ways of working it out is factorials. One is by powers of four. Crazy teacher

and it is also implying eating 3 scoop icecreams is ok - which for a 6 year old seem OTT to me :)

I gave a similar task to my YR2 class as a Christmas activity- it was stripy baubles rather than scoops of ice cream! They absolutely loved it, but found it really difficult to do, and a lot of them repeated baubles without realising. Only two members of the class worked logically, so they were able to keep track of which designs they'd already used. TBH, I find it a bit strange to give this as a homework activity, as I was just as interested in watching how the children went about finding the answers (i.e. did they work logically etc), as I was in actually seeing what their answers were. Obviously you can't do that when they do the work at home.

therockenholt - - now I know I'm on Mumsnet!!

DS's teacher is lovely and would be mortified if I sent her a link to this thread. There is another Yr2 teacher too so it could of come from her. I was sometimes guilty as a teacher of thinking 'Oh shit, forgot maths homework' then photocopying something without giving it enough thought. I'm sure there will be plenty of narky parent comments for them!! I really just wanted to reassure myself that I wasn't being totally gormless - it seems not!!