Spinner Activity

This is an activity that can be done on your own or with a partner. First, take the spinner and spin the handle. When it stops on a number, record the number on your worksheet with a tally mark. Take note that there are numbers 1-10 on the spinner. Repeat this process until you have spun the spinner 10 times. Numbers the spinner landed on:

1 _____

2 _____

3 _____

4 _____

5 _____

6 _____

7 _____

8 _____

9 _____

10 _____

Now that you have ten results, take each group of tally marks and divide it by the total number of tally marks, which is the total number of spins made. This number is ten, so every set of tallies for every number should be divided by ten. Number of tally marks divided by 10:

1 _____

2 _____

3 _____

4 _____

5 _____

6 _____

7 _____

8 _____

9 _____

10 _____

Your answers should be in decimal form. However, there is another form that these answers can be written as. If you take the number of tally marks that you recorded, put a line beneath it, and then put the total number of tally marks- 10- beneath that line, then you have what is called a fraction. The number above the line represents how many parts of the whole unit there are and the number below the line represents how many parts make up the whole unit. Ex: If there are

two tally marks for the number 3 out of the ten tally marks, then the number 3 was spun 2/10 of the time, which is read as two-tenths, just like 0.2 in decimals. Please record the results again in fraction form. Number of tally marks as a fraction:

1 _____

2 _____

3 _____

4 _____

5 _____

6 _____

7 _____

8 _____

9 _____

10 _____

What relationships can you see between decimals and fractions?

Lets do this exercise again from the beginning; except this time, lets make the total number of spins 20. Numbers the spinner landed on:

1 _____

2 _____

3 _____

4 _____

5 _____

6 _____

7 _____

8 _____

9 _____

10 _____

Number of tally marks divided by 20:

1 _____

2 _____

3 _____

4 _____

5 _____

6 _____

7 _____

8 _____

9 _____

10 _____

Number of tally marks as a fraction:

1 _____

2 _____

3 _____

4 _____

5 _____

6 _____

7 _____

8 _____

9 _____

10 _____

Were any of the decimals in the second trial the same as the decimals in the first trial? Did the fractions relating to those matching decimals match each other? What conclusion can you make about this result?

If you did not get any decimals that came up in both the first and second trial, we are going to make one up. Lets pretend that in the first trial one of the numbers tally marks, when divided by ten, gave you 0.2 as an answer. We will also pretend that one of the numbers tally marks in the second trial, when divided by twenty, also gave you 0.2 as an answer. This is interesting, but far more interesting is that in the first trial, you get 0.2 by dividing 2 by 10, which gives a matching fraction of 2/10. In the second trial, however, to get 0.2, you must divide 4 by 20, which gives you a fraction of 4/20. How can both fractions 4/20 and 2/10 be equal to the decimal 0.2? There are multiple conclusions to be made from this result.

For an additional challenge, repeat these exercises by creating results using your own total number of spins for the decimals and fractions. In other words, instead of 10 or 20 spins, pick 14 or 33 or any number you want to pick for the number of spins.