Here are three questions. For each one, hands up: is it sure to happen, might it happen, or can it never happen?
Take a few hands-up answers for each, not open call-outs. You are listening for the three different feels — sure, might, never — without naming them yet. Revoice a strong answer: so that one is sure to happen every single day.
Watch two spinners on the board. On the first, every part is the same colour. On the second, there are two colours. Notice which outcomes are sure, which are never going to happen, and which ones only might happen.
Point at the all-red spinner: ask what colour it is sure to land on, then whether it could ever land on blue. Draw out the two words certain and impossible from the class before you name them.
On the second spinner, hold out for the shift: red is no longer sure, it is only possible. Head off the mix-up between impossible and unlikely here — blue could still turn up on this one, so it is not impossible, just not guaranteed.
In your maths copy, write three headings: certain, possible and impossible. Under each heading, write one everyday event of your own that fits it.
Walk the room glancing at whether each event truly fits its heading — no marking, this is whole-class copybook practice. Watch for a very unlikely event landing under impossible; nudge with could it ever happen, even once?
Before each pupil changes the spinner, the rest of us decide in our heads what it should look like, then hands up to agree or change it. Each time, we say out loud why it fits the word before we check.
Today we set up the spinner three ways. First, make landing on red certain. Then make landing on red impossible. Then make it only possible — where red might turn up but might not.
Talk this one through together. A pupil changes the spinner while the class predicts first: ask the room how many parts must be red for it to be certain? and take a turn-and-name before the pupil moves anything. The watching class's job is to agree with a hands-up or say what they would change.
For certain, all segments must be red; for impossible, no segment can be red; for possible, some red and some not. Listen for pupils justifying with the amount of colour, not just guessing. Revoice: because every part is red, there is no other way it can land.
We sort these four event cards into three groups: certain, possible and impossible. We take them in this order, each one a little trickier than the last:
For the last one, we decide together: is it truly impossible, or just very unlikely?
This is the practice round. One pupil places each card, the class confirms the group before moving on, so all four pupils get a turn and the rest agree out loud. Keep it brisk rather than over-explaining.
The first three sort cleanly (certain, possible, impossible). Hold the snow card for the close: it could happen even if it almost never does, so it belongs under possible, not impossible. That distinction is the whole point of the lesson — let the class argue it out and settle it.
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