Humanising Language Teaching
Year 5; Issue 5; September 03

100,000 meals

I have a wonderful life. I love sitting down to eat, and never miss a single meal -- lunch, afternoon tea, breakfast or dinner. Since the age of 18 months, I have enjoyed 100,000 meals! I want to celebrate this accomplishment on my next birthday, when I will be ____ years old.

ABCD Town

Which of these four houses A, B, C and D can you draw in a single line without lifting the pencil or drawing the same line twice?

Easter eating

If one child and a half eats one and a half chocolate bunnies in a day and a half, 4 and a half children eat 4 and a half chocolate bunnies in…??

Alexandrine at the office

Alexandrine gets into the office every day at 9 o'clock and leaves at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. But this morning while she was racing to get to work on time, her watch fell off her wrist onto the marble floor of the office entrance and has been 4 minutes slow per hour ever since. Alexandrine doesn't know this, and will leave work when her watch reads exactly 4 o'clock. What is the real time?

My favorite tree

You can find out the name of my favorite tree by completing the magic square below (the sum of each line = the sum of each column = the sum of each diagonal). Then decode the letters according to their place in the alphabet and order them while adding the letter u twice…

18	24		6
10	11	17	23	4
22		9	15
14		21	2	8
	7	13

Sibling togetherness

I live in Paris, and I hate travelling. My brother the mariner is completely different and sails all over the world. As for my sister, she is an airline stewardess and flies night and day to all points of the globe. I follow them in my mind and cannot sleep well unless we are all together on the same half of the planet.

During what percentage of nights do I have trouble sleeping?

Finnish hopscotch

"Yxi, kaksi, kolme, n²lje, viisi, kuusi, setsinen, kahdeksan, yhdeks²n". In case you haven't guessed, this is how to count from 1 to 9 in Finnish. All you need to do is place these melodious words in the grid below to get the same sum for each 3 lines, 3 columns and 2 diagonals.

Hint: Each sum totals "viisikymment²".

Memphis Blues

Here we are in Memphis. We contemplate the beauty of the Mississippi river from a terrace while listening to a trio playing classical jazz. The players are Big Billy, Little Tony and Johnny Lee. We can hear a trumpet, percussion, and a piano. We know that Big Billy does not play percussion, the pianist is not Big Billy, and the drummer is not Little Tony.

Who plays the piano?

My favorite school memory

My favorite memory from school is the Pythagorean theorem. The teacher explained that in a right-angled triangle, the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the sides. I used to repeat this formula to myself as if it were my favorite poem. Our professor demonstrated it with the following drawings. How?

Bayonne-Biarritz

You are driving the bus from the Bayonne train station to the Biarritz Town Hall. It is 5.35 p.m. The temperature is 21°C. You started out with 18 passengers, and you are driving down Route 10. Five passengers are over 70. Four passengers got out of the bus at the Place des Basques stop and three got on at Aguilera. Among the passengers present in the beginning, four just got off the train. Among the 35 passengers who will get off the bus at the end of the line, 12 will be going to the Biarritz beach. How old is the driver?

Boulangerie-story

Two donuts and 1 muffin cost me $2. When I buy 1 donut and 2 muffins I pay $2.20. Today, I only bought 1 donut and 1 muffin. How much do I have to pay?

Malo's camels

Malo has just finished drawing camels and dromedaries with a total of 20 humps and 48 legs. Malo adds a fatma to each camel's hump, and a sheik to each dromedary's. How many fatmas belong to each sheik?

Champs-Elysées

"I'm walking around in Paris, and I'm currently crossing the Place d'Alma. If I want to walk towards the Etoile, a detour through the Place de la Concorde will lengthen the route by 2.4 km. If I want to go to the Place de la Concorde, if I go through Etoile the route will be 1.9 km longer, because the avenue des Champs Elysées is ___ km long." It's up to you, dear reader.

Dear tortoise

My great-grandfather, who was six years older than my great grandmother, received a baby tortoise for his fifth birthday. The tortoise died at age 97 two years ago. It is now the year 2000. In how many years will we celebrate my great grandmother's 100th birthday?

Dog-seal

If seven dogs eat seven buckets of fish in seven days, and five seals eat five buckets of fish in five days, which eat more, dogs or seals?

Cocktail

I approach the buffet. In each plate is a mixture of 7 tiny cheese sandwiches, 7 small quiches, and 7 little pizzas. I choose an assortment without looking. In the first plate, I take just enough to be sure to eat 3 of the same kind of canapés; in the second plate, I take just enough to have one of each canapé.

How many things did I eat?

Oranges and friends

There are seven of us, and we have 28 oranges to share. Everyone wants an odd number of oranges. What a problem!

From TIC to TRAC in three minutes

TRAC is a parallelogram where the length of the segment RA is 6.28 and the length of segment CA is 3.14 cm. I is a point that bisects RA. You have three minutes to calculate the angle TIC.

Chess to dominos

Take a chess set. Place a white castle on its initial position on a corner square, and a black castle on the corner square on the opposite diagonal. Then observe thirty-one dominos placed such that each one covers two consecutive spaces on the board. How can they be placed to cover the 62 remaining squares?

Adorable children

Each of my children has at least two sisters and one brother. But this would not be true if I had one less daughter or one more son. How many adorable children do I have?

Model cars

"My white Cadillac cost $2 more than my turquoise blue Maserati. My pink Buick cost $7 more than my white Cadillac, but $3 less than my orange Twingo. My black Rolls-Royce cost $5 more than my pink Buick. And my lemon yellow Chevrolet cost $4 more than my turquoise blue Maserati, that is, $____ ____ than my orange Twingo." Fill in the spaces…

A big Basque family

In the Etcheberrigaray family, there is an aitatxi (grandfather), an amatxi (grandmother), an aitaginarreba (father-in-law), an amaginarreba (mother-in-law), an erren (daughter-in-law), one alaba (daughter), one arreba (sister), two seneak (sons), one anai (brother), two aitak (fathers), two amak (mothers), three haurak (children), and one semetchi (grandchild).

They all want to get into the same car. Do they need a bus?

French twins

We know that 3 out of 250 will be twin births, and that the population of France is 56 million. How many of French people are twins?

Luchon 1954

It's the summer of 1954. I'm leaving for the Luchon spa, and I'm not sure whether to stay at the Continental, Sacarron, or Angleterre Hotel. One is painted yellow, another pink, and the third is built with gray stone. The hotel painted yellow has just opened, and has no tennis court, but its customers can use the court at the Continental hotel. If I tell you that the Sacarron hotel was built before the hotel painted pink, can you deduce the color of the Angleterre hotel?

The Mexico subway

On one of the subway lines, the train comes every 10 minutes during the day and takes exactly one hour to go from one end of the line to the other. Someone gets on the subway at the end of the line and wants to reach the other end. How many trains will he see going the opposite direction?

The spider and the fly

Our bathroom is a cube 2 meters on each side. While a fly is crawling up the southern side in a diagonal, from the southeast to the southwest, a spider is making its way along the ceiling from the northeast corner to the southwest. The spider and the fly reach the southwestern corner of the ceiling at the same moment. They seem to be delighted to see each other, and spend a long moment discussing how to determine the angle created by the intersection of their two paths. The spider claims it should be 90°, but the fly does not agree. Who's right?

Multiplying by 9 using your fingers

If you have problems remembering the multiplication tables for 9, use the following trick to determine the value of 9 x n, n being any number. Place your two hands flat on the table. Then lift finger n starting at the left. The result will have the number of fingers remaining to the left in the tens position, and the number of fingers remaining to the right will represent the units. Give it a try… As you can see, this method works extremely well. Can you explain why?

Example : 9 x 7 = 63

Apple skins

The skin of the last Golden apple I ate weighs 4 times less than the skin from the last Granny. How many times ,more did the Granny weigh than the Golden?

Oil platform

To get from the Stavanger airport, in Norway, to the Frigg oil platform, I took a helicopter. I went 100 kilometers to the west, then 100 kilometers to the south. On the return trip, I went 100 kilometers east, then 100 kilometers north. How did the landing go?

Plaza Mayor

My friend Leopoldo and myself both live at Plaza Mayor. When I leave home and walk clockwise, I come to the Cafe Castellano in the fifth house down the street from mine, and the Banco del Espiritu Santo y Comercio in the eleventh. When Leopoldo leaves home and walks in a clockwise direction, he passes the Banco del Espiritu Santo y Comercio three houses down and the Cafe Castellano in the twelfth. How many houses are there in the Plaza Mayor?

Avant-garde poetry

To improve my mind, I bought a book of avant-garde poetry. It's completely incomprehensible, and the only parts I understood were the page numbers, a total of 207 figures. There is one poem per page starting on page 3. How many avant-garde poems can't I understand?

Mounted police

I'm strolling through the Bois de Boulogne. How many mounted policemen did I see? Twelve-thirteenths mounted policemen. Plus twelve thirteenths mounted policemen. ???

What time is it?

To know what time it is this morning, just add the time until noon and two-fifths of the time since midnight.

Family reunion

Nine members of the same family are having a reunion. Each person arrives alone at the same time. For very complex psychological reasons that we will not go into here, every member of the family kisses 5 members of the family and shakes hands with 3 others. Is something wrong?

Roland-Garros

For the Roland-Garros tournament, the tennis federation has chosen 128 players for men's singles, 128 for men's doubles, 128 for women's singles, 128 for women's doubles, and 128 for mixed doubles. How many umpires will be needed if each can only manage 5 matches maximum?

Animal saga

"5 are not dogs,
At least 4 are not cats,
At least 3 are geese,
At most 2 are cows,
At least 1 is a rabbit."
How many animals are there?

Ring around the rosy

Twelve children are dancing in a circle and singing. Choose 3 children at random, add their 3 ages, and you will always get 17. Caroline has Florence to her right (4 years younger). Facing Caroline is Paul, who has Beatrice on his left (3 years younger). You will probably have deduced, dear reader, the ages of Caroline, Paul, Florence, and Beatrice.

Cross-country skiing

A cross-country skier can't decide between two different trails. The first is completely flat, and the second is half uphill, half downhill. Our skier knows that he is twice as slow going uphill as when he is moving on a level, but twice as fast when going downhill. "So," says he, "it will take me the same time to do either trail." What do you think, dear reader?

Sum and product

Once upon a time there were four consecutive whole numbers whose product was 24,024. What is the value of twice their sum?

Super-Family Circus

"My daughter takes care of giraffes, that is, three-quarters of the giraffes and three-quarters of a giraffe. My son takes care of elephants, that is, of four-fifths of the elephants and four-fifths of an elephant. My wife is a trapeze artist, and I'm the clown -- the Super-Family Circus. Oh, sorry, I almost forgot Jocko, our talking chimp." How many living things are in the Super-Family Circus?

Aunt Eulalie in rhyming couplets

You were born, dear cousin, eleven years before me
And when I'm four-fifths as old as you be,
Together we will be as old as Aunt Eulalie
Can you, dear reader, her age deduce for me?

TGV-TGV

I'm travelling from Paris to Lyon in the TGV and I'm sitting next to the window. When another TGV, exactly the same as ours, passes us going in the other direction, it takes 2 and a half seconds. Each TGV is 278 meters long, and so we are going at ____ kilometers per hour.

Old skyscrapers

Finally I'm here in New York, and I'm about to visit the three old skyscrapers whose names I've written in a secret code. Can you decode them? FNQJSFTUBUF, LETOHRODUT, HCYRLSRE.

Superman, Wonderwoman, and Spiderman

It's 1930. Colette, Georges, and Simone have one Wonderwoman, one Spiderman, and one Superman comic book. But Georges detests Wonderwoman. And if Colette reads Superman, Simone insists on reading Spiderman. A girl is reading Superman. Who is reading Wonderwoman?

Two tunnels

While a freight train 400 meters long is going through a 600 meter tunnel, a passenger train twice as fast and twice as short goes through a tunnel three times longer. Who will spend the most time in the tunnels?

500 seconds for a tree trunk

If it takes 200 seconds to cut a tree trunk in two, it should take 500 to cut it into five parts, right?