Probability

Day One:

OBJECTIVE: Students will be able to (SWBAT) use tally marks to determine the probability of a pile of beans being less than, greater than, or exactly 10.

Attention Grabber: Tell the students a story. We are going to pretend that we came into the school this morning and discovered that someone was here in the building late last night. They were in several places in the school and she has come to US to ask for our help figuring out who the person was. The first thing we found when we started investigating was a small pile of beans. We think the beans represent how old the person was. So we are going to do our own investigation. We believe that the number of beans in the pile represents the age of the person who was in the building last night and it is a CLUE to help us solve the mystery!

Introduce the Activity: Students will grab small handfuls of beans/cereal pieces from the bag and place them in the squares on their 10 frame/recording sheet. Using tally marks, students will record the number of times that their piles were less than 10, exactly 10, and more than 10 in the boxes at the bottom of the page.
After each student completes their 10 beans worksheet, record the results of the whole class. Were you more likely to grab more than 10? Less than 10? Or exactly 10? Record the whole group’s finding on the board using tally marks. We think that this might really be a hidden CLUE. Overall, the class grabbed more than 10 beans (I hope). This clue could mean that the mystery person in more than 10 years old.

REVIEW PREVIOUS KNOWLEDGE (Comparing #s) – Complete the following number sentence on the board:
The age of the Mystery Person _________ 10 (Greater than/less than)
I predict that most of the kids will grab more than 10 beans/cereal pieces per handful so I am predicting (and hoping!) that the age of the mystery person will be GREATER than 10.
I realize that this is not the strongest story connection, but I am hoping it is just enough connection to make sense in the kids’ minds and help them to get into the mystery.

Day Two:

OBJECTIVE: SWBAT create a graph to show probability.

Attention Grabber: Review the “MYSTERY”. What do we know about the person so far? Based on yesterday’s activity, we predict that the MYSTERY person is older than 10. After we looked at the pile of beans, we found some candies left on the counter. The candies were all one color. Maybe the color of the candies is the MYSTERY person’s favorite color!

Introduce the Activity: You will each get a dice and a recording sheet. The first thing you’ll need to do will be to look at the recording sheet and predict (make your best guess) which color will be spun the most – the MYSTERY person’s favorite color. Mark your prediction with an “x” in the box at the end of the rows. Then start spinning! Color in the fruits you spin with crayons to create a BAR GRAPH. Record the group’s results on a bar graph on the board. The color that won the most is the MYSTERY person’s favorite color!

Now I want you to look at your dice and your recording sheet. How many chances did you have to roll each color? What if we changed one of the red spots to green? Would you be more or less likely to roll red? Green?

Introduce how we could influence probability. We’ll go into this more tomorrow.
So what do we know about our MYSTERY person so far?
The age of the Mystery Person _________ 10
The MYSTERY person’s favorite color is: __________________

Tomorrow we’ll figure out the last 2 clues to help us solve the mystery! So be looking around at the school to see if you can figure out who the MYSTERY person is. We know they are older than 10, and their favorite color is _______________. Keep your eyes peeled. And tomorrow we’ll solve this mystery!

Day Three:

OBJECTIVE: SWBAT use tally marks to determine the probability.
Attention Grabber: Review the story and what we know so far about the MYSTERY person. Did anyone see anyone today who they think might be the MYSTERY person? Do they fit both criteria? We’ve got 2 more clues today to help us solve this mystery.

REVIEW PREVIOUS KNOWLEDGE (Time): We have to solve this mystery by 11:30. How many minutes do we have to figure this out? Let’s get started!
Introduce the Activity: We have 12 different bags marked with the numbers 1-12. Students should determine beforehand whether they want to keep track of their results on a graph, with tally marks, or by keeping a list.

Each student will pull an item out of their bag and record what color or it on their recording sheet. Then place the item back in the bag. After doing this 6 times, switch with another student and complete the same activity with that bag. Make sure you list the bag number at the top of your recording sheet. Continue as many times as you can in the given time.

On the class tally sheet, record what color was most likely to come out of each bag. Then have each student dump out the contents of their bag and examine the contents. Bags that were more likely to have a blue bear pulled out have a greater percentage of blue bears in the bag. Discuss probability and how to change probability by changing the number of items each color.

So, the red bears represented black hair in our MYSTERY. The blue bears represented brown hair. Does the MYSTERY person have black or brown hair? Answer: BROWN HAIR
So this is what we know:
The age of the Mystery Person _________ 10 years old.
The MYSTERY person’s favorite color is __________________.
The MYTERY person has ____________________ hair.
Any ideas who may have been in the school that night? Do your ideas fit all the criteria?

We have one last clue:
REVIEW PREVIOUS KNOWLEDGE (Place Value): Let’s use our knowledge of place value to figure out the room number we should go look at. We found this clue:

Lets go find this classroom and solve the MYSTERY!
Unit Conclusion:
Head down to Mrs. Moon in the library where she has a treat (make sure the students eat the treat before going back to class). Have them make sure she meets the criteria. MYSTERY solved!