The Lion Sleeps Tonight – part 2

Yesterday was my twenty-fourth first day of school, well, not completely. I was with teachers and administrators for meetings and new school year information, but kids will arrive Thursday. I am excited and I am sure the kids are, too..

I have one more day of meeting and a FULL day to work in my classroom and prepare for Thursday’s real first day of school with kids.

After school, I asked a colleague to film the solution to the riddle I posed in last week’s Tuesday’s Tune – The Lion Sleeps Tonight.

In the jungle, the mighty jungle
The lion sleeps tonight
In the jungle the quiet jungle
The lion sleeps tonight

Before the solution reveal, let’s review the rules.

  1. The raft needs at least one animal to paddle it across the river, and it can hold at most two animals.
  2. If the lions EVER outnumber the wildebeest on either side of the river (including the animals on the boat if it is on that side), the lions will eat the wildebeest.
  3. The animals cannot just swim across – there are crocodiles in the river, there are no tricks, the animals must use the raft as described in rule #1.

Did you give it a try?

If so, how long did you persist in the challenge?

And now the solution……


Isn’t that wild? Sometimes it’s important to realize that there can be more than one way to solve the puzzle. I found that using manipulatives – slips of paper or in the case of my video – lions and wildebeest – helps visualize the problem and figure out the solution.

The key is persistence.

It’s going to be a great year and I look forward to learning alongside my young scientists.

Today is going to be an amazing day, even if I am in a meeting or a presentation. There is always something new I can learn, some new take away, or something I can learn to add to my practice. So, I’d better jump up, jump in, and seize the day. Making each days count, one day at a time, always learning something new, accepting failure, thinking outside the box, and applying what I have learned moving forward.

What was the most challenging part of the riddle?

2 thoughts on “The Lion Sleeps Tonight – part 2

    1. Well done! One thing I forgot to mention in either of the write ups, is that the students are sitting in groups of four at tables exactly like the one I was sitting at in the video and class lasts about 40 minutes. So they don’t have much time to actually work. My adults had about twenty-five minutes to work. It takes time and you have to let yourself fail, before you can succeed. Thanks for stopping in and have a wonderful day (which you are well into) and look for W^2 later this evening!

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