The Chance of this happening is….

In Maths we have begun a new topic Chance and Probability.

What is chance?

The likelihood of the occurrence of a particular event.

Many events can’t be predicted with total certainty. The best we can say is how likely they are to happen, using the idea of probability.

The first activity we did was working with a partner to order the following words from most likely to least likely to be true.

No doubt about it

Not likely

It’s anyone’s guess

Probably

Maybe

Fat chance

Pigs might fly

Unlikely

Possible

Impossible

Perhaps

No chance

Dead certain

IMG_8549 IMG_8550 IMG_8552 IMG_8553 IMG_8555  IMG_8561

Most of us could decide on which words to have at the top and bottom of the list, however which words to place in the middle of the list was difficult. Some phrases such as ‘pigs might fly’, ‘fat chance’ and ‘dead certain’ were discussed as an entire group. Some people thought that ‘fat chance’ meant that it was a large chance or possibility that something would occur, however we soon discovered that this phrase is actually used sarcastically when there is a slim chance of something occurring. Some of us also decided that some words were equal in meaning so they were placed side by side. Overall everyone did a great job and we had some interesting discussions around the words we use in everyday language.

Our next step was that we had to think of a sentence incorporating one of these words to describe the chance of a certain event occurring. Here are some examples:

IMG_8589 from skye baldwin on Vimeo.

IMG_8588 from skye baldwin on Vimeo.

IMG_8583 from skye baldwin on Vimeo.

IMG_8590 from skye baldwin on Vimeo.

IMG_8582 from skye baldwin on Vimeo.

IMG_8581 from skye baldwin on Vimeo.

IMG_8578 from skye baldwin on Vimeo.

IMG_8587 from skye baldwin on Vimeo.

IMG_8586 from skye baldwin on Vimeo.

IMG_8580 from skye baldwin on Vimeo.

IMG_8579 from skye baldwin on Vimeo.

Can you create your own sentence to describe the chance of something occurring in everyday life?

Where do you see chance and probability taking affect in everyday life?

What other words can you think of that people use when describing the chance of an event happening?

4 thoughts on “The Chance of this happening is….

  1. Dear Mrs Baldwin
    I have created a sentence to describe the chance of something occurring on an every day life. Oh no my friend fell over I thought in my head that perhaps I should help him but I know that there’s no chance of him diying.

  2. Dear miss Baldwin another word for chance I have thought of is maby because like we were doing it in class how we got the anvolopes and we swapped the counters around . In every day life when I would say mabe and because . From Jessica m.

  3. Dear Mrs Baldwin
    The sentence is that I put forward is The chance of NZ winning this test series is very slim.

    Some words are probably,maybe,never,slim chance,hardly ever,not impossible and I could go on.

    From David

  4. Dear Mrs Baldwin,
    The chances of my brother breaking his arm today is not likely.
    I’m dead certain that we will have recess today.

    From Zoe

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