Middle School 

Grades 3 and 4

Chance and Probability

What are the chances that it will rain today? Is there a chance that it might snow? We know that in Melbourne there is always a chance of the weather changing - so should we take a jumper to school?

The language of chance is something that we use, often without thinking. We have been asking the grade 3/4 students to think about the chance / likelyhood of events occurring.

To get the students thinking all about chance we got them to complete a Google form where they had to predict if it was certain, possible, likely, unlikely or impossible for them to get particular flavours of Zooper Dooper. They were then blindfolded and had to predict the flavour before tasting, then taste and predict again and then see if they were correct.

We then looked at the results of their predictions and found that only a couple of the students had correctly predicted the colour/flavour of the Zooper Dooper that they ended up eating.

Students have had opportunities to play games where they predict if a coin tossed will land on a head or a tail, or the red or yellow side of the disk. All the grade 3/4 students played a partner game of chance called SKUNK. Each player has a piece of paper with the word SKUNK written in large letters across the top. The aim of the game is to get the highest total. The first player rolls two dice and adds together the numbers. The total of the dice roll is put under the letter S, that first player can choose to roll again and add to the inital number under the letter or pass. They can roll as many times as they like to get the highest score possible. The problem arises if the player rolls a one. They lose the score that they have in that column. So do you risk rolling again, knowing there is a chance that you will roll a 1? Watch out if you roll a double 1 - then you loose all your points up until that point. When the first player has decided to stop rolling the second player then rolls the two dice and puts their score under their S. The second player can roll as many times as they feel confident that they wont roll a 1. You then move onto a new letter with each new round of the game.

The students loved this game. There were some students taking bigger risks, they noticed that the lower their score the bigger the risks they might have taken. They were calculating their partners and their own total to see the likelyhood that they might win or lose. 

You can watch how this is played on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SWReEQOVr4 

I wonder, what are the chances of you playing this game at home with your family?

Dates to remember

Please make sure you have let us know if your child is attending swimming - the cut of for this is Monday 18th November. 

Term 4

18th November - Bake a Wish Sale - grade 3/4's baking

19th November - Choir to sing

25th November - Bake a Wish Sale - grade Prep/ One /Two baking

25 November - 6th December (except 27th Nov) - Grade 3/4 Swimming. We leave each day at 8:55 and return at 11:45.