I would definitely recommend this probability bingo activity! It was thought-provoking and fun. Then, they had to critique the strategy of designing your card to reflect these probabilities. In order to give my students a grade for the day, I asked them to calculate the probability of rolling each color combination. The moral of the story? If there’s only a 3% chance that something will be rolled, don’t put it on your bingo card. That Red/Red combination never came because another student filled up her card first. Once again, I found myself waiting and waiting and waiting for RR. Here’s the start of Round 2 of Probability Bingo. Just for fun, I decided to leave my card exactly the same since I had won the first round. She accidentally left the BB combination off of her card. One of my students decided to calculate the probability like I had. Based on our first round of bingo, my students set out to create a better bingo card. I had anticipated this, hence the double-sided bingo cards. My students instantly wanted to play again.

I wasn’t the only person waiting for an RR. I didn’t take a picture of it, but I sat for a long time with only my RR square unmarked. The GG combination was not rolled as much as I would have liked. We all agreed that we should have put more Blue/Green squares on our probability bingo cards. With every roll, I got to mark off a square. You’re looking to be the first to fill up your entire bingo card.Īt first, I was off to a good start. With each roll, we marked off the combination once. The students took turns rolling the two dice. I had one square left at the end, so I went ahead and labeled it RR even though the probability of rolling a RR is approximately 0.03. I multiplied each probability by the 25 bingo squares to determine how many squares I should label with each color. I quickly calculated the probability of each combination of colors.

The first time I ever did this with students, I decided I wanted to play along. I discuss how the dice were made, and students get to work filling out their bingo cards.

I print the bingo cards double-sided because students ALWAYS want to play a second round! To prep for this activity, you will need to make the colored dice described in the instructions and print a set of probability bingo cards for the class. Some years I have even had students create the dice themselves! I have also taken post-it notes and taped them to the sides of a large foam die. I would write the letter for each color on a side of the cube using a Sharpie. Before I got fancy, I used to use the small blank foam cubes that you can buy at Dollar Tree to create custom dice.

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