Developed in partnership with Education Services Australia

The Australian Curriculum sets the goal for what all students should learn as they progress through their school life. Skills in the Foundation Year curriculum include:

• recognising that some events might or might not happen
• thinking of alternative possibilities
• recalling experiences to help make judgements about possible events.

It’s easy to help your child practise these skills as part of everyday life – just use these simple ideas.

Talk about it

Mastering possibility, probability and prediction takes a lot of practice. You can help your child with everyday conversations, as well as games and activities. For example:

• ask your child to make predictions about common things
  
  The sky is sunny this morning, do you think it's going to rain?
• talk about possibilities, using words such as might, may, maybe 
  
  We might pick mummy up from work today.
  
  Maybe we’ll see some ducks at the park.
• ask your child what might happen in a given situation, and encourage them to come up with different possibilities (crazy ideas are more fun!)
  
  Q: What do you think the dentist will say when she checks your teeth?
  
  A: She might say I’ve been doing a good job, or she might say I need to brush better, or she might tell me to eat more chocolate cake!
• play games that use dice or spinners and talk about chance
  
  You need a four to win, can you roll it?
  
  Is it easier to roll a two or a five? 
• when reading storybooks together, pause sometimes and ask your child to make predictions about the story.
  
  What do you think will happen next?
  
  What else might happen?

Go online

For online reinforcement, Slushy sludger will give your child practice at:

• creating combinations to create different probabilities.

Note: this game is aimed at Year 1, so you might need to help your child read the questions, talk about the choices, and think through the chances (rather than just guessing). 

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