Vargas’s work focused on children´s autonomous activities as well as on their intrinsic motivation in mathematics classrooms and was designed in the sense of the so-called genetic method (Ambrus & Vancsó, 2017, p. 7). His goal was to enable learners to discover mathematics in various every-day situations and to find appropriate mathematical models (Ambrus & Vancsó, 2017, p. 10). In a playful way, he wanted to convey methods, models and basic concepts of mathematics and especially the rules of logic. However, a main and basic area of mathematics, which also should be communicated to children from the very beginning, and which is not independent of logics, is the area of arguing and proving in mathematics. The question, how Varga placed and communicated arguments and proofs suitable for 1st-to-4th-grade learners, will be answered by analysing his German-language book Engel, Varga & Walser (1974). In this issue, two of his favourite mathematical areas, namely combinatorics and probability theory are brought to bear. ZDM Subject Classification: E50, K20, K50 Key words and phrases: Reasoning and proving in the mathematics class-room, Combinatorics, Probability concept and probability theory
Analysis of Ability for Understanding the Basic Concepts of Probability Theory