The Kids have dealt with all sorts of weird and wonderful days as Rads, from Monday to Sunday, but every week their least favourite day is Chore Day! And it seems to Kevin that almost every time he spins the CHORE SPINNER he lands on “Dust the shelves.” Even though Kevin feels it is his bad luck to get this one chore out of the 8 that are on the spinner, he and Alanna and Uncle Norm find out that luck has nothing to do with it. Kevin has the same chance of landing on this chore as he has of landing on “Do the Dishes” –he has a one in eight chance. And no matter how much a person may wish for some things to happen it’s all random. But as they experiment with spinners and dice they also see that it can be a lot of fun taking chances.

The Gist: This episode is about probabilities and the common instruments of chance, e.g., spinners and dice. A spinner has 4 equal sectors colored yellow, blue, green and red. What are the chances of landing on blue after spinning the spinner? What are the chances of landing on red? In the curriculum, children are required to predict the frequency of an outcome in a simple probability experiment or game (e.g.,“I predict that an even number will come up 5 times and an odd number will come up 5 times when I roll a number cube 10 times.”), then perform the experiment, and compare the results with the predictions, using mathematical language. They are also introduced to number fact families (in this example different ways to sum to seven).