Solve the Mystery of the Missing Carrots

This is a fun problem solving and counting activity to do with your children. In Spid the Spider Investigates a Mystery at Easter Spid is very proud his prize-winning carrots. But having planted rows of carrots he is disturbed that they are vanishing in the middle of the night. Is there a vegetable thief at work?  As he investigates he must be as cleverley as Cleverley Evaleigh …

Parent and teacher notes

This free to download exercise to develop your child’s reading, problem solving and counting skills.

As Spid plants his rows of carrots, your child’s job is to draw and write down the number of carrots he plants. Also to keep track of the running total while a vegetable thief is at work!

This exercise is designed for younger children. However, you can increase complexity of the problem to suit older children by adding more steps to this process. For example; by including more complex multiplication, and including double digit numbers.

To help your children better understand numbers at least up to 99, help them think of ten (s) (all their fingers) and multiples of single digits. For example, that eleven (11) = 10 + 1, that twelve = 10 + (1+1), and so on to nineteen (19) = 10 + nine 1s.