Planning tool

Students:

• identify the possible outcomes of a chance experiment
• list all possible outcomes in a simple chance situation
• conduct repeated trials of chance experiments
• predict and record all possible outcomes in a simple chance experiment
• create a tally chart to record results, carry out trials and tally results.

Some students may:

• be still developing their language skills and not fully understand the language of chance to then be able to relate it to the likelihood of an event occurring
• tend to believe in luck (e.g. they will have a better chance at rolling their favourite numbers)
• make predictions based on likes and interests (e.g. their favourite colours for spinners)
• not realise that chance has no memory (e.g. if a student has rolled four sixes in a row, they often believe the fifth roll cannot possibly be another six).

To address these misconceptions, ask students to play and create games linked with chance. This will encourage students to use the language of chance, test their findings, record the results and make generalisations. Students also need to experience playing unfair games.

The Learning from home activities are designed to be used flexibly by teachers, parents and carers, as well as the students themselves. They can be used in a number of ways including to consolidate and extend learning done at school or for home schooling.

Learning intention

• We are learning about probability, which is the likelihood of an event happening.

Why are we learning about this?

• We often use the language of chance and the probability of something happening in our daily lives, for example, there is no chance of rain today as it is forecast to be hot and sunny.

What to do

1. Find a die with the numbers 1 to 6.

2. Each roll is called a trial. You will roll the die 20 times and record the results of each trial. Before you start, predict:

1. how many times you will roll 6
2. what number you will roll the most
3. how many of each number you expect to roll.

3. Roll the die 20 times and record the number rolled for each trial in a table like this.

4. Continue to 20 trials.

5. Compare your predictions to your results. What do you notice?

Success criteria

I can:

• use chance terms to describe the likelihood of events happening
• predict and record all possible outcomes in a simple chance experiment
• compare results to my predictions and explain any differences.