Going to St Ives

Resources

Going to St Ives (worksheet)

Going to St Ives (PowerPoint)

Teaching notes

This is such a well-known problem that it is often oversimplified. As far as the solution goes, it is a good example of the fact that all of the information in a problem must be taken into account before a solution can be achieved (though some information may not be relevant).

Solution

Only the narrator is actually going to St Ives (the wives, cats, etc are all met on the way, but the question never says where they were going).

Extension

• Ask students to write their own trick question or poem.
• How many kits, cats, sacks and wives were there?