This problem has a story line that will encourage youngsters to become involved in Delia's nocturnal adventures. To answer the question: How many days before Delia has to take the same route again? requires the children to find all of the possibilities (By the way it's 74!). How many weeks / months would this be? Given the number of pathways, this problem could be ongoing asking the children if they could find another three or four routes each day over a couple of weeks.

One problem that may surface is the confusion caused as youngsters randomly find routes that Delia can take. This confusion presents itself as a valuable learning (and teaching) opportunity. Helping children devise a way to methodically find and record the different pathways will build the skills of organising information in an accessible and useable way.

The mathematics underlying the activity is based on Euler's work on networks. Having young learners consider the number of possible choices they can make at each junction, or node in network language, will assist them in later work when they to begin to gather information that will let them construct their own theory of networks.