I need a couple of good spinner ideas for lessons on probability. We've tried some spinners that were divided unequally, but I'd like to do somehting different for another lesson.

[texas123]

Probability of picking certain things. I printed out clipart of different topics and set them up as centers. Students had to write which one was most likely to be picked, least likely and what fraction of each one. For example:

Music instruments: What is the probability of picking a guitar? violen? drums? etc.
Food
Sports
etc.

I also had little brown bags with tiles inside. I placed different color tiles in each one. Some had more red, yellow, blue, etc. Students visited each bag center and had to write down tallies each time they picked a tile out of the bag. Then they had to use the data collected to see which color was most likely to be picked. They opened the bag and then saw why that color was most likey picked (because there was more of that color) and which color was least likely picked (because maybe there was only one tile.) H

Hope this helps!

[jjwires]

Marilyn Burns has an excellent book on probability. It is also geared specifically for third graders.

[elephant]

I had my students make their own spinners. Each team of 4 had to work together to make several spinners that would show each of these situations: most likely, equally likely, less likely, impossible, certain.

Then, they had to test and graph the results. They LOVED it.

I just punched out circles from the die-cut machine and they colored the sections.