N2/L1.8

A simple but effective dice game to help students become familiar with, and practise, calculating percentages of amounts. You will need to customise 2 dice by writing amounts on one and percentages on the other.
I usually play this game with low ability students after teaching them a fail-safe calculator method for working out percentages of amounts, but it can be adapted for higher level learners.
It also helps to reinforce that 0% of a number is nothing and 100% of a number is all of it.

PPT covering

• Percentages of simple amounts (10%, 50% etc).
• More challenging amounts (e.g 15%)
• Percentage increase and decrease.
  Each objective has examples, followed by tasks.

Using a video from YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6eTr4ldDYg) about the miniature earth I have created this PowerPoint on percentages. It will work well with John Thompson’s easy percentage worker-outer and Margaret Adams’ Calculating percentages as quantities (links below under “See also”).

A set of cards that can be used to play a game where students have shares in a small company. Each group of three players receives ‘market updates’ in the form of cards that require them to divide a number in a ratio, or find the value of an amount given the value of part of the amount. Students are encouraged to keep full financial records. As a differentiation task for confident students, it is possible to calculate the percentage change in value of the shareholding at the end of the game.

This spreadsheet is designed to enable students to check their own work; but also to learn about what happens when you add two decimals, or multiply two fractions, and so on.

The spreadsheet consists of the following sheets:

A fabulous, very clear lesson plan ideal for money-management / personal finance classes. The mathematical focus is on percentages (VAT) but it also covers rounding and extracting data and can be used in mixed ability classes from E2 -L2.
The plan also includes links to online Budget videos, a ‘chop or not’ game, VAT calculators and more!
Also suitable for underpinning L1 Functional Maths, and linked to Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship (ESDGC).

A hands-on, very visual introduction to percentages and simple equivalent fractions.

A resource based on catalogues (Argos and Littlewoods) that works especially well with younger students. 2 versions, differentiated for Level 1 and Level 2. Covers addition and subtraction (money) and percentages.

Use a copy of Auto Trader (or similar) to select and buy cars – working out deposits and monthly payments. Then buy cars to do up and sell at a profit!

Equal opportunities maths makes a great quiz for college Equal Ops weeks etc. Once you have checked the answers to the quiz you can complete percentage questions to put the statistics into perspective.