Probability iPad Activity

Are you teaching or getting ready to teach a unit on probability? Then THIS techie lesson will get your kiddos thinking about and working with the terms associated with probability.

Right before Spring Break I worked with some 3rd grade teachers at one of my elementary schools to introduce the basics of probability. We kicked off the lesson by giving every student an iPad to use with this Nearpod presentation I made below (you can use Nearpod with any device that has internet access):

 

After we launched the Nearpod presentation, the students opened the Nearpod app and entered the lesson code as well as their first name. Nearpod allows the teacher to control whatever the students see on their screen. It is truly a brilliant program! We used the FREE version of Nearpod for this lesson but Nearpod also comes with a paid subscription that has some pretty amazing features. Students viewed slides that we talked about and also interacted with the content by typing text, drawing, answering questions, etc.. It was a great introduction to probability terms such as likely, unlikely, certain, impossible, possible....

If you have a Nearpod account set up and are interested in using this presentation, sign into your account and then click on {THIS} link. The presentation will be sent directly to your library!

Next, we got the kids creating on their iPads using Comemories and the free app, Doodle Buddy.

Probability Templates QR Code

Students really put their knowledge of probability to the test! They scanned a QR code that took them to {THIS} Comemories site that was preloaded with different probability templates I had created. Students chose their favorite colored background and saved the template to the camera roll. Next, we launched the app, Doodle Buddy, and brought the template in as the background. Students read the sentence at the top of their template and had to make a picture representation to match the probability description using the stamps. This was a lot harder for them than it looked. Afterwards, students used the pencil tool to write their name at the top. Students submitted their work to my Work Collector and we were able to quickly project their creations on the board for everyone to read and decide if the sentence matched what was represented in the stamps they chose to use. We had some really good conversations about some of the pictures and students seemed to walk away with a better understanding of probability! Here are a few of their images that MATCH their probability description.
 

I hope you can use this lesson with your students!