Look at the spinner in the picture. It is mostly red, with only a thin blue slice.

If you spin it, do you think it will land on red or on blue? How can you tell before you even spin?

Watch two spinners on the board. Notice how much of each spinner each colour covers, and think about which colour it will land on most.

On the last spinner, get ready to say whether red or blue is more likely, or whether they are equally likely.

Today we set up spinners together on the board. In turn we will set the section sizes so that:

• landing on red is likely,
• landing on red is unlikely,
• red and blue are equally likely.

Before each spinner is set, say what the sections should look like, then we check.

Here is one more event to think about: the sun will rise tomorrow morning. This is a very likely event, so it sits at the most-likely end.

Now we work through these together, from easiest to trickiest:

• The next car to pass the school is a colour you have seen before — likely or unlikely?
• You pick the one red counter from a bag of ten blue counters — likely or unlikely?
• Put these three events in order, from least likely to most likely: you pick the one red counter from the bag; the next car is a colour you have seen before; the sun will rise tomorrow morning.
• Compare two spinners and say which one gives red more often.

For each one, say your answer and how you know.