Summer SAVY Session 3, Day 2 – Games Galore
Day 2: Our second day of Games Galore was a blast! We started our morning with a community-building game of “Would You Rather?” using a digital spinner. We then explored the concepts of certainty and likelihood in our world. After watching and discussing a short Discovery Ed video on the topic, students brainstormed events in their world that are certain, likely, unlikely, and impossible. Students also read and practiced a poem about the likelihood of events and completed an activity with an unfair spinner to work on describing events on a continuum of likelihood.
After all this deep thinking about the probability of events, students needed a brain break. It was a lovely day to have a snack break outside followed by a few minutes of playing bean bag toss or blowing bubbles.
Included in our afternoon probability investigations was a Tic-Tac-Toe investigation where students tested the game over several trials and compiled and analyzed data to determine whether the game was “fair”. Students also engaged in Grab Bag, Marble Jar, and Fair Spinner investigations.
While most students understood the concepts of likely and unlikely, certain and impossible were a little trickier. With guided questioning, students were usually able to conclude that if something is certain, there is 100% chance of it happening, and if something is impossible, there is 0% of it happening. For some dinner conversation tonight, ask your child to share with you examples of certain, likely, unlikely, and impossible events and ask them to explain their thinking. The impossible scenarios they come up with can be quite entertaining.
Tomorrow, we will continue to build on the concepts introduced (fairness, chance, likelihood) and will focus on building an understanding of the importance of uniformity when predicting outcomes and making a game fair.
Have a nice evening!
Ms. Davidson