Maths problem

Home

Chat

Blogs

Collection

Directory

Home : 2004 : March : 11

Maths problem
By RebeccaH

Hi everyone this is a question my son needs help with. He has just started an Education degree in Perth, WA. (both my husband and I are teachers.) He has to organize a lesson where the two children have a transparent bag
containing 50 marbles. They take it in turn to remove between 1 and 6 marbles. They do not have to take the same number each turn. The child who takes the last marble is the loser. he has to investigate starting from using various number of marbles and changing the number of marbles that can be taken each turn. He has to get them to look for patterns in the results and explain their origins.

We have been busy playing the game. We came up with the first person taking a certain number and then the second person makes the two toatals 7. That way the second person is controlling the game so the first person loses. Can anyone help us. I teach year 1 and we do it as a take away exercise but this is for year 7's. Thank you for any help or advise.