General Resources

A really interesting quick quiz – originally written to get e2e learners interested in numbers but makes an ideal warm up activity for any group (at any level).

An international themed resource for World Maths day on March 1st 2011 or any other day. I based it around the C&G E3 Numeracy exams but it is also ideal for, and fully mapped to, Functional Maths.
Will also prompt disucssion on many issues from the cost of air travel through to literacy rates in Peru and traffic in the Panama Canal!
Includes tips for covering Functional Maths process skills.

An international themed resource for World Maths day on March 1st 2011 or any other day of the year.
It is also ideal for, and fully mapped to, Functional Maths. Will prompt disucssion on many issues from the UK population through to literacy rates in Peru and the Coral Coast in Fiji!
Includes tips for covering Functional Maths process skills.

A multi-functional resource for Literacy or Numeracy. Sample TV listings by day, programme, start and end times, channel and genre. Use for alphabetic or numeric sorting, skimming and scanning exercises, literacy social sight vocabulary for days of the week, numeracy exercises for calculating time, etc. This resource contains some sample exercise questions to use which can be developed further according to need. I laminated the sheets and then cut up into days so lower level learners can move the elements around. Higher level learners can work from the whole page sheets as well.

A great PPT quiz – the emphasis in on maths (questions on number of matches played, groups etc.) but it also includes general knowledge questions. All question can be easily adapted if they are too easy / difficult.

A clever spreadsheet that creates a set of 15 loop or ‘follow me’ cards. Comes with a prewritten set of cards based on multiplying and dividing by 10, 100 and 100 but can you can easily add your own questions and answers on any topic.

A fabulous set of illustrated instructions. Makes a great activity for literacy and numeracy classes (reading instructions, measuring, shapes, etc.) at many levels.
For an easy to use template please see Bryan Fitzpatrick’s accompany resource below.

Celebrating Diwali cleverly combines details about the Hindu festival with information on the common homophones: there – their – they’re.

Questioning for understanding is a really useful help sheet that encourages learners to ask relevant questions (any topic, any level). Based on Kipling’s “What and Why and When, And How and Where and Who” with teaching ideas and useful links.

For a related resource using the same idea to investigate and write newspaper reports please see Ellie Walsh’s Looking at Newspapers (below).

Investigate the possibility of a college stocking fairly traded products in its canteen. Covers many reading, writing, ICT, numeracy, speaking and listening skills inc. data handling, report writing, creating charts and questionnaires, giving a presentation, etc. Ideal for embedding all three functional skills (or literacy, numeracy and ICT) especially for business students.