Colour fortunes - How much chance is involved?

In Maths we have been investigating the outcome of a fair spinner.  We used the spinner in a 'fairness' task related to friendship week.

We used a colouring version of the painting 'A Young Lady's Adventure' by Paul Klee.

These are the steps we followed to complete the picture:

1.  As a class we chose 10 colours - one for each number on the spinner.

2.  Mrs Baldwin chose a section of the picture and then we used the spinner to see what colour this would be.  This meant that the children in 4B had no control over the choices made.  It was not fair behaviour.

3. Next, in pairs, each person chose a section of the picture for their partner and then the owner of the picture had to spin the spinner.  This meant that although we still had no real control we still had some connection to the outcome.  It was fairer.

4. After that we experimented with spinning the spinner ourselves.  We thought about what the difference would be if we used the spinner (learnt the colour) and then chose the section compared to choosing the section and then spinning the spinner.

We decided there was quite a difference in this - Spinning first and then choosing meant we had a very good chance of getting what we wanted, at least until we got nearer the end of the task!  We liked that!

We compared this task to making choices in life and how we interact with our friends.  None of us like being told what to do, we enjoy being listened to and each having a fair chance to speak, share our ideas and join in.