Skip over navigation
Plants
Age 5 to 14
Challenge Level 
To achieve solutions for the three children getting $5, 6$ and $7$ using just $10$ plants, the most successful solutions were practical. Kagan at St. Michael's Sandhurst used buttons in circles to show a good example of a correct solution - well done, and here it is.
Billy, Oli, Samuel and Oscar from Wold Newton Foundation Primary School also worked practically, using hoops and bean bags. Here are some photos of three solutions they found:
They also sent in a photo of their recording sheet which includes the same arrangements as the first photo, and the last photo, plus three others:
We've also had a number of other responses which focused on working systematically to get all the solutions. The best results so far have been from Misha and Marjolaine of Highgate School, who both found 34 different arrangements!
Some years ago the same challenge generated these solutions from a group of children in Somerset:
You may also like
Junior Frogs
Have a go at this well-known challenge. Can you swap the frogs and toads in as few slides and jumps as possible?
More Children and Plants
This challenge extends the Plants investigation so now four or more children are involved.
More Plant Spaces
This challenging activity involves finding different ways to distribute fifteen items among four sets, when the sets must include three, four, five and six items.