12 Days of Christmas

Each year PNC Bank calculates the cost of the gifts in this familiar Christmas carol.  Watch a short video that presents each gift and tells the percent increase or decrease for that gift each year.  Following this presentation, users may select from a number of games available on the site or view a graph of the annual cost index.

Investigate the math behind this holiday gifting by working through DIMACS The Twelve Days of Christmas and Pascal's Triangle.  Students who struggled to figure out the total number of gifts received will be astounded to discover that the patterns in Pascal's triangle may be used for an easy solution.

Students might also enjoy singing 12 Days of Math, a math teacher's parody of the famous carol. 

Print out pictures of the 12 Days Gifts for students to color and/or use as props when singing the song and discussing solutions to the problem of total gifts given in this holiday song.