This series of activities will challenge students’ Common Core skills and critical thinking skills in a variety of ways!

How do baseball video game developers design their video games so that Major League players perform with relative accuracy according to their real-life strengths and weaknesses? They begin with statistics and probability.

In this series of activities, students will apply probability (expressed as fractions and dice rolls) in order to design a baseball card which will be used in a baseball game they can play.

Along the way, students get plenty of practice with Common Core math (and writing a summary, too) including adding equivalent fractions, determining probability, measurement, calculating area, and using the math language of probability. They’ll need 21st Century Learning skills in Internet and Computer Technology (ICT—graphic design and locating and using information) and artistic skills in graphic design. As students tie all the pieces together, they’ll need plenty of logic and critical thinking skills to make it all work.

Best for advanced 5th grade through 7th grade, this series of activities would be a great challenge for quantitative-identification GATE students in the 4th grade as well as the regular 8th grade classroom.

In this series of lessons, you get teacher instructions and explanations, five activity sheets on probability and fractions to help the students along the way, a guide to playing the baseball game, and sample pictures for the design of the baseball card.