Chance: Possible, Impossible, Certain Events
Lessons in this chapter
About Chance: Possible, Impossible, Certain Events
Chance is one lesson, and it is probability before any numbers: sorting events by how likely they are to happen.
Describe Events as Possible Impossible and Certain gives kids three categories and asks them to place everyday events in one. Rolling a six is possible, rolling a seven on a normal die is impossible, and the sun rising tomorrow is certain.
The useful part is the argument, not the label. A child who says rolling a seven is impossible because a die only goes up to six is reasoning about the outcomes available, which is exactly what probability does with numbers attached later on.
The boundary cases are where it gets interesting, and they are worth dwelling on at home. Is rain tomorrow possible or certain? It depends on where you are, and noticing that the answer depends on the situation is a better outcome than sorting ten tidy examples correctly.
The chapter is one lesson, Describe Events as Possible Impossible and Certain, and it opens as a worksheet in the page. Each question gives an everyday event and asks which of the three labels fits it, and the borderline ones are the interesting part. It is free, scored as you go, and short.
Frequently asked questions
One lesson, Describe Events as Possible Impossible and Certain. It asks a child to sort everyday events into three categories, with no numbers or fractions involved: rolling a six is possible, rolling a seven on an ordinary die is impossible, and the sun rising tomorrow is certain. This is not part of the Common Core at first grade, which has no probability strand this early; it is here because the language of likely and impossible is worth meeting before any arithmetic is attached to it.
Sorting events into possible, impossible and certain. No numbers or fractions are involved; that comes much later.
Possible means it might happen, certain means it definitely will. Rolling a six is possible, the sun rising tomorrow is certain.
That it cannot happen at all given the situation, like rolling a seven on an ordinary six-sided die. Explaining why is the part worth asking for.
Because the language comes before the arithmetic. Kids who can reason about which outcomes are available have the idea that later gets a number attached to it.
Because 1st grade only introduces the vocabulary. 2nd grade's Basics of Probability extends it, and formal probability arrives in middle school.