Possible, Impossible, Likely, Unlikely...

Probability

As an introduction to our unit on probability, students talked about events that could/could not happen.  They described the probability as a measure of the likelihood that an event will occur using math language (impossible, possible, likely, unlikely, certain, uncertain, more likely, less likely, equally likely, etc.).  They each chose an event to illustrate, write about and describe the likelihood of that event actually happening.

'I will read a non-fiction book....likely.'

'It will rain minions...impossible.'

'It will rain puppies and kittens.....impossible.'

'I will have a billion horses....unlikely but possible.'

Tower of Ten Game

Students began looking at spinners deciding if they were fair or unfair.

Each time the spinner landed on their side of the spinner, they added a block to their tower...

first one to have a stack of 5 or 10 wins!

'This is a fair spinner because there are two parts white and two parts blue...I can win but you could win too...'

Nobody wanted to be green since they would have less chances to win the game.

Design Your Own Spinner

Choose a card with an instruction and make the spinner match the card.

Make a spinner that is unfair.

Make a spinner that is fair.

Make a spinner that is unlikely to land on blue.

Make a spinner that is equally likely to land on red and green.

Make a spinner that is more likely to land on green, least likely to land on red, but possible to land on blue.

'My card said more liklely to be yellow.'

Snowman Probability Game

Spin the spinner and add the part of the snowman

indicated on the spinner.  Whoever builds their whole snowman

first wins the game.