There were many, many responses (a lot of which were diagrams, like that from Jonathan to show the solutions) to this problem. Several different solutions were found, which depended on how the information was interpreted. Was Grandma the mother of the Uncle or were they different people? Were any chairs left empty at the table or were they all filled?

Several solutions, like that from David from De Aston School, David and from Georgia , left an empty seat to Grandpa's right because they assumed there were just two cousins at the table. Some people seated Grandma at the end of the table but nearest to the turkey. If Grandpa carves the bird, should he be sitting closest to it? There were decisions to be made before the solution could be found. Clearly many of you put a lot of thinking into the work, like the pupils of Moorfield Junior School and Michael from Aughton Primary, Rotherham, who "worked very hard with Mrs Roberts to come up with a solution".

A strategy to help them you keep track of the people around the table is very helpful. Katie , Michaela and Kirsty from Brancaster Primary School, Norfolk had one: "We put numbers around the table 1-12 to make it easier for us."

Sinead from Bebington explains her strategy for placing the family around the table: "I looked at the first statement and saw that the baby had to go in between its mother and father, so I put him in between them, but I made sure that the mother was at the baby's right. Then I put the Grandpa and Grandma at the ends of the table and put the two twins in between the two cousins, but placed the Auntie by one of the cousins. Then I placed the Uncle opposite his wife (the Auntie) and next to his mother (Grandma). And I made sure that the baby was opposite one of the twins. I then checked that the Auntie was at the right of Grandma and that one of the cousins was by Grandpa so that he could help Grandpa carve the turkey."

A few people came up with the seating arrangement shown in the diagram above sent in by Sinead . Do you agree that this will work? Most of the solutions, however, gave the same seating plan as the one below sent by Weiying of Tao Nan School in Singapore: they decided to sits Grandpa closest to the bird and, as he received help from a cousin, they thought it a good idea to put a cousin to both the right and left side of Grandpa rather than leave an empty space. Katie, Michaela and Kirsty realised this:

We put a cousin on each side of Grandpa because it said, "Grandpa has to have a cousin to help him carve the turkey. "We put the other cousin on the other side because we had to put the twins in between the naughty cousin and the other cousin.

cousin     twin     twin     cousin     aunty
           -----------------------------------------------
Grandpa   |                                               |   Grandma
          |                                               |
           -----------------------------------------------
           cousin     father   baby     mother     uncle

Thank you to Kristina , Kristine , Abi and Emma and Anthony and Elliot from Moorfield Juniors , Chris G . and Jimbo P ., A.H.S. , as well as Lewis and Emma from St. Mary's R.C. School in Chipping, Lancashire, for their solutions.