Winter

Nice selection of winter activities written for an E3-L2 Functional Skills group (best for E3-L1).
The main activities are a reading comprehension (about the history of poinsettias and how they came to be popular at Christmas time) and a cloze exercise based on an old Mexican religious legend. There are also some maths questions.

Level
Entry Level 3
Level 1
English
Rt/L1.3
AL Rt/L1.1 Understand continuous texts
Rt/E3.4
AL Rt/E3.1 Understand longer texts
Adult Literacy Rs/L1.1 Use implicit and explicit grammatical knowledge
Adult Literacy Rs/E3.2 Use implicit & explicit knowledge of word types/order to help with decoding/predicting meaning
Context
History, culture, museums, libraries
Gardening & Horticulture

An original and very functional volume / area / converting measures task conceived during the heavy snows of winter 2010/11. It gives a new slant to snow clearing and could easily be adapted to different areas of driveways, paths, etc. Fully mapped to Functional Maths and adult numeracy.

Level
Level 2
Maths
MSS1/L2.5
MSS1/L2.9
MSS1/L2.7
Functional Maths - measures, shape & space
Context
Painting Decorating & DIY
Health and safety

Based on a BBC Religions – Paganism article, this is an interesting reading comprehension for the long winter months. It also includes a cloze exercise and some short writing and research activities.

Level
Level 1
English
Rt/L1.3
AL Rt/L1.1 Understand continuous texts
Context
History, culture, museums, libraries

A series of topical questions based on recent (Jan 2010) temperatures recorded in Newcastle. Covers mean, mode, median, range, extracting information, fractions, percentages, negative numbers and more. Also suitable for underpinning L1 and L2 Functional Maths.

Level
Level 1
Level 2
Maths
HD1/L2.3
Extract and interpret information
Functional Maths
Fractions decimals & percentages

Topical help (three different texts) with the underpinning skills necessary to achieve Functional English (FE) at L1-L2. Includes reading comprehension, summarising, and writing (a formal email using the provided documents to back up points). With full details of relevant FE criteria.

Level
Level 2
Level 1
English
Functional English - writing
Adult Literacy: writing composition (Wt)
Rt/L2.8
Adult literacy: reading comprehension (Rt)
Functional English reading

Topical practice with L1-L2 number and measure skills (plus a few at E3) and would make a good starter or homework activity. Most questions are based on recent data from the Big Freeze of January 2010. Topics include converting temperatures, converting between metric and Imperial units, proportion, negative nos. and percentrages.
The topical and problem solving nature also makes this very suitable for underpinning L1 and L2 Functional Maths.

Level
Level 1
Level 2
Maths
Functional Maths
Common Measures
MSS1/L2.6
AN MSS1/E3.1 Add & subtract money using decimal notation
Add subtract multiply divide
N1/L2.1
AN N1/L2.4

Covers planning, drafting and proof reading a recount. This is an adapted version of the popular Entry Level Christmas in Lapland assignment (see below). This version is aimed at Entry 3 – Level 2 and gives the writer a choice of format: letter, diary entry or story. This version also removes the Christmas references and can thus be used at any time during the winter months. With a mark sheet for E3, L1 or L2 to allow for differentiated assessment.

Level
Entry Level 3
Level 1
Level 2
English
Adult Literacy: writing composition (Wt)
Context
Leisure, Hobbies, Travel & Tourism