Choo Choo Trains

Class begun with the teacher explaining that each student would grab as many cubes out of the box she was walking with as possible. After that was done we each counted how many cubes we grabbed, I grabbed 8. we recorded our number on our papers and counted how many students were in the class, 18 total. then we were given sticky notes to write our number of cubes on and took it with us to the front of the class and formed a human dot plot. We left out sticky notes on the board and sat back down. this helped us see the range of numbers we had. It was 11, this means we had 11 different numbers of which the students crabbed cubes from the box. then we looked at the most often number drawn or the mode, this was 9. We found the median too and this is the point in the data where half of the values are above and below this point, ours was also 9. Then we looked at the mean and this is then number that everyone should have for it to be equal in the data and ours was 8.8 repeating.

We discussed what the mean, median, and mode would be used for in real life situations. Such as you can the mean of horse races because the number are very similar. You can use median for the heights of students in a class. Also mode can be used for finding the most cars bought in a certain color versus other colors bought.

Graphs and Candy

From probability we started talking about statistics in my math class and to start out we were given small bags of m&m's and a packets called graphing m&m's. Just like any other activity we have done we had to answer some questions before starting the activity. when we got to open the bags and dump the m&m's on the table most of the class started separating the m&m's into piles based on the colors. then we had to count out how many of each color we had and record it. Then there was a pictograph we had to color in for each color and m&m we had.

Then we started discussing what dot plots are and they are when you have a small set of data and you put each value on a specific point of a graph using an "x" or a dot. We created our own dot plots for the different colors of m&m's using the entire class data. after that was done we made another pictograph and bar graph based on the class data. We answered "what graph was easier to construct and why" and "what graph was easier to read and why". I answered saying the bar graph was easier to construct and read because make the bars more accurate and read it more accurately then the pictograph.

Dice Play

We did another activity involving probability but with dice. First we had to answer some basic questions about dice like what is the largest sum of 2 dice and what is the smallest sum? then we had to make a prediction about what number we thought was going to appear the most. Then instead of actually tossing dice we used a calculator and tallied how many times each of the numbers showed up 36 times in a table. Then we answered more questions and explained if our predictions were right or not.
On the back of the paper we we had to add the 2 numbers of all possible outcomes that can be thrown using dice. Then we had to write the probability of the outcomes 2-12 and we also wrote the odds in favor of and odds against for the outcomes.

Rock, Paper, Scissors GO!!!

In my math class we always have some type of fun. It is elementary education mathematics for teachers for a reason after all. So this activity required the class to work in partners and we played rock, paper, scissors 45 times and recorded what we got not just who won. Meaning that we had a table set up so the top part was player 1 and the side was player 2 and then there was paper columns, scissors columns, and rock columns and we would tally what combination we got.

When we were done we used the data to set up our probabilities of how many times player 1 won, how many times player 2 won, and how many times we got a tie. My partner and had a lot of ties. then we did a theoretical probability of the games. Basically what would make a fair set of rounds. then we compared the the experimental probability and the the theoretical probability.

Casino and Craft Fun

There was this activity with finding the probability of playing cards and pom poms. We went over how many cards were in a deck of cards, 52, how many suites there are,4 clubs, spades, heats, and diamonds, how many cards in each suite, 13, and discussed the face cards, kings, queens, and jacks. So w had to pretend that a card was selected from the deck and fin the probability of it happening. like a red card is drawn then you  think well 13 in each suite so add 13+13 and you get 26/52 but that can be simplified to 1/2. We did this for 8 different scenarios.

The back of the paper was about tree diagrams and using colored and white pom poms. You had to make a tree diagram of pulling a colored or a white pom pom out of a box and then if the next draw would be another colored or white pom pom. the questions asked were about the probability of drawing 2 different colored pom poms with replacing and not replacing the pom poms back in the box.

Goldfish Pond

Hi,
In my math class we did this activity called healthy fish. It was about probability using colored goldfish. The green colored goldfish were sick or unhealthy goldfish and the other colors, I think they were red, gold, and yellow, were healthy fish. It was actually a fun activity because it helped me understand the new concepts we were learning in class and it was a cool way to introduce probability. Probability is the likelihood of an event or something happening or being the case.

The activity it self was getting a bag of colored goldfish and placing them on the table. then we had to separate the sick fish from the healthy fish and count how many of each we had and record on our papers. Then we had to find the total number of fish we had and record it. we had to write in a ratio or fraction what the probability for the health fish was and what the sick fish probability was. So like my paper says 42 healthy fish and 8 sick fish, altogether there are 50 fish. My ratios would loo like 48:50 and 8:50. when you add them together for the probability of picking a healthy fish it is 1. This is just some of the worksheet we did but it was really fun to do.