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Welcome to my math blog! The purpose of this blog is to help you stay informed about our learning and experiences that have taken place during our math class. I have also included links your child (and you) may want to use in order to supplement math learning in 5th grade.

Thursday, April 21, 2016

Probability with Coins

We began by combining the data from all three classes to see how our theoretical probability and our experimental probability compared:



The classes felt it was pretty impressive!

We continued our work with probability by working with two coins.  We began by defining probability (the likelihood an event will happen).  Today we listed all of the possible outcomes using three different models:  t-chart, branching, and a matrix.  To see our lesson, please watch the video:  2 Coin Toss.


Next, we moved into finding the theoretical probability (what SHOULD happen) when tossing two coins.  We discovered that we should have HT/TH about 1/2 of the time, HH 1/4, and TT 1/4 of the time when tossing.  We also discovered that once we combined all of our data, our pie chart should look like spinner 2 from yesterday. 


Once we had our theoretical probability, we could now experiment.  Each student tossed 2 coins recording whether the coins landed HH, TT, or HT, until there was a "winner" (the first one to reach the end of the row).

 We used our data to determine how close we came to our theoretical probability both individually, and as a class.

Mrs. Dittrich's class tossed a total of 440times.  This meant that their graph should have about 110 TT, 110 HH, and 220 HT combinations.



Mrs. Dabbs' class tossed a total of 521 times.  This meant that there graph should have about 131 HH, 131 TT, and 256 HT combinations.



Mrs. Johnson's class tossed a total of 400 times.  This meant that their graph should have about 100 HH, 100 TT, and 200 HT combinations.




As you can see from the visuals, all three classes have similar pie charts.  Tomorrow, we will combine all three classes to see if our theoretical probability and our experimental probability are any closer.

To finish out the day, I asked them to predict what will happen tomorrow when we combine the data from our two-coin toss.  I asked them to give me a visual and explain why they thought this would be the outcome.

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