Teaching Children Mathematics Journal Article

Young, E. (2010). Probability: a whale of a tale. Teaching Children Mathematics, 17(2), 106-112.

Probablilty: A Whale of a Tale
This article was a breeze to read due to the creative lessons described in this article. This study took place in two Title I third grade classrooms. The study consisted of introducing probability in both classrooms in a very nontraditional way, and seeing if it was more effective than the a more traditional way of practicing with endless amount of problems. The article first began by explaining that both classrooms introduced the topic of probability by reading a novel typically used in an English class. The title of the book is "Dear Mr. Blueberry." The reason this book was chosen was because of the vocabulary that was introduced and how it led to such a great discussion on how likely it was; based on the terms: likely, highly likely, not very likely, or impossible. The teacher then made a line chart where the students would have to put their term deciding if having a whale in the backyard would be likely or impossible. After a discussion, students were given new sentences and had to place their probability sentences next to the words that best described them. Students also had to draw pictures and write one sentence that were likely, certian, unlikely or impossible. Teachers would then display the pictures around the classroom after the group discussion. Another activity is having students match the sentences and the pictures together. Having creative activities help students learn the material in a fun and non stressful environment. The author concluded the article with another lesson plan with dice and having students roll the dice and predicting the sum of the dice.

I really enjoyed this article a lot because I thought the lesson plans were very orginial and authentic. Learning probability can be an intimidating topic because it can be difficult judging if something is likely or highly likely to happen. Having many ways of introducing this article will help students realize what the vocabulary terms mean and become more comfortable with using the terms. I also really enjoyed how the math classroom integrated a novel into the classroom. As a student, I always wanted to know how something applies to my life, and bringing in a book and having the teacher explain that todays lesson will directly correlate with this novel would be such a neat way to introduce a new math topic.