We Got Crackin' in our Final Math Class

Today was highly anticipated by the children in my math group. They have worked hard and have had a lot of fun with probability exercises this semester. As an exciting culminating event, we played "egg roulette".

I had nine students today, so nine eggs. All eggs looked identical - but 4 were filled with confetti, and 5 were empty. Without shaking the eggs, each child got to pick one and then bravely smash it on their heads. (As a side note, it is really fun to show children clips from Jimmy Fallon's show - he does egg roulette with a variety of guests. I previewed one (to check for language) and then showed it to the students so they could see how it works.)

 Marcel, with a head full of confetti

Of course there was a lot of math involved as we had to figure out the chances of getting a confetti egg each time. The first person to try had about a 45 percent chance of getting a messy egg (4 out of 9 chance = 44.444444%). Since that turned out to be an empty egg, the chances increased for the 2nd contestant (4 out of 8 chance = 50%). Each time an egg was cracked, we refigured the chances.

At long last it was the final person's turn. Max knew he had a 100% chance of getting confetti-ed - and of course he was.