Holiday Math Challenges!

Grade Level: K-6 -change numbers to fit your students' needs.

1. If Santa has 9 reindeer, and 4 of them have names that begin with the letter D, how many of the reindeer do not have names that begin with a D?

2. If Santa uses 8 reindeer to drive his sleigh, how many eyes do the reindeer have in total?

3. If Santa uses 8 reindeer to drive his sleigh, how many legs do the reindeer have in total?

4. Santa decides to buy name tags for his reindeer. The names are:

Dasher
Dancer
Prancer
Vixen
Comet
Cupid
Donner
Blitzen
Rudolph

For each name tag, vowels cost $3 and consonants cost $5:

a. Which 3 reindeer are tied for the most expensive names?
b. Which 3 reindeer are tied for the least expensive names?
c. How much did Santa pay for the name tags for all 9 reindeer?

5a. If Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer nose has 3 red light bulbs in his nose, and they blow out every 8 hours, how many light bulbs will Rudolph need if he is going to work (and glow) for 24 hours?

5b. If Rudolph's bulbs cost $1.25 each, how much will Rudolph have to spend for his 2 hours worth of light bulbs?

6. If Christmas falls on Sunday, December 25th, what day of the week will New Year's day be?

7. What fraction of Santa's reindeers have names that start with a D? (see question 4 for reindeer names)

8. One of Santa's elves eats too much breakfast during the holiday season! He weighs 30 pounds, but each morning he gains 5 pounds. He works so hard making toys in Santa's factory each day, he loses 3 pounds by the night? If this pattern continues for 12 days, how much does the elf weigh at the end?

9. If there are 9 people under the mistletoe, and each person has to give all the others a holiday hug, how many hugs will be given in total?

10. For the Hanukkah holiday, 2 candles are burned the first night, and then one additional candle is burned each night after that (3 candles second night, 4 candles the third night, etc.) How many candles will be burned in total if Hanukkah is 8 days long?

11. An artificial Christmas tree weighs 51 pounds. If there are 3 parts that make up the tree, and each part weighs the same amount, how much does each part weigh?

12. If the distance around Earth is 24,000 miles, and Santa has to get around the entire planet in 24 hours, how many miles will he have to travel each hour?

13. If Santa delivers:
5 gifts to the 1st house,
11 gifts to the 2nd house,
23 gifts to the 3rd house,
How many gifts would he deliver to the 7th house?