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Describe the Drawers
Age 5 to 11
Challenge Level 
Describe the Drawers
Here is a set of drawers:
As you can see, some are labelled with a letter and some are not.
How could you say where the letter K is? Can you describe the position of that drawer without mentioning any of the labels on the other drawers?
What about the letter C? Or the letter M?
How would you describe where the drawers are that have labels which spell the name of your country?
How would you describe where the non-labelled drawers are?
Why do this problem?
This problem gives pupils the opportunity to talk about position. They need to decide how to label the 'rows' and 'columns' that the drawers are in.
Possible approach
A set of drawers or plastic pockets that are arranged in a rectangle could be used first of all to get the pupils talking.
Then when they are beginning to develop some appropriate language the challenge can be presented to them as it is written.
If appropriate, you could use this challenge as a way of introducing traditional ways of labelling rows and columns, for example by letter and number.
Then when they are beginning to develop some appropriate language the challenge can be presented to them as it is written.
If appropriate, you could use this challenge as a way of introducing traditional ways of labelling rows and columns, for example by letter and number.
Key questions
How could you talk about that drawer?