Games where students can make decisions based upon their understanding of probability help to raise their levels of consciousness about the significance of probability. Gathering data can lead to issues of probability as well. Students should experience probability terms such as possibly, probably, and certainly in a variety of contexts. Statements from newspapers, school bulletins, and their own experiences should highlight their relation to probability. Learning probability and statistics provides an excellent opportunity for connections with the rest of the mathematics standards as well as with other disciplines.
Probability provides a rich opportunity for children to begin to gain a sense of fractions.
The ability to explain the results of data collection and attempts at verbal generalizations are the foundations of algebra. Making predictions in both probability and statistics provides students opportunities to use estimation skills. Measurement using non-standard units occurs in the development of histograms using pictures or objects and in discussions of how the frequency of occurrence for the various options are related. Even the two areas of this standard are related through such things as the use of statistical experiments to determine estimates of the probabilities of events as a means for solving problems such as how many blue and red marbles are in a bag. The cumulative progress indicators for grade 4 appear below in boldface type.