Adult Numeracy, Functional Maths, and GCSE Resources

A quick but very useful match-up activity that makes a good starter activity for financial literacy or employment skills courses - and it's bound to prompt discussion.

Editor's note

Written for an Australian audience but I have added a UK version on page 2.  Learners can draw lines to match the items or, for a reusable resource, the page could be laminated and/or cut into 12 cards. 

20 literacy and numeracy questions to warm up the new term! All based on the words HAPPY NEW YEAR (can easily be adapted for other festivals such a Diwali, New Year’s Eve or Ramadan). Covers vowels, consonants, number, ratios, simple substitution, range, mode and more!
Ideal for mixed ability groups (E1-L2). Also provides very good practice in reading instructions carefully.
For higher level groups it could be completed in teams as a speed test.

This is great as a warm-up activity or a bit of end-of-term fun. It is suitable for a mixed ability group of numeracy learners, or indeed literacy or ESOL learners. This quiz tests learners’ knowledge of how old someone has to be in order to do certain things legally, e.g. be a blood donor. It can be used in small group or pair work (which worked well for me) as well as individually.

A 12-question test, designed for an Adult Numeracy class consisting largely of ESOL speakers.
Covers the terms “import” and “export”, since these often crop up in exams. Also mean, mode, median and range, and the meanings of “discount”, “under”, “approximately”, “difference” and “enlarged”. A little fraction revision, too: students have to identify 1/3 as “one-third”.

Students design a board game to demonstrate their learning. This can incorporate IT skills (Word template provided below) or can be done with paper, card and pens.

I originally did this with an E2E group and it proved popular. It’s an alternative to the “design a poster” task to review learning. The instructions are set out as a board game. it can be used for literacy, numeracy, ICT or ESOL.

An outstanding set of resources. Developed to prompt discussion on knife crime with parents and children in a family learning setting, they are equally suitable in an FE setting – prompting discussion between students and tutors. The materials can be used to focus on knife crime but are also useful as part of wider discussion about criminal behaviour.

The resources include

[img_assist|nid=4634|title=|desc=|link=popup|align=left|width=74|height=100]3 different Tarsia puzzles covering a range of topics including: percentages. converting metric measures, addition/subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, time, etc.

Puzzle 1 – set of 24 dominoes (E3-L2)
Puzzle 2 – 24 triangular pieces (forming a hexagonal puzzle). L1-L2
Puzzle 3 – 12 piece ‘oval’ parquet puzzle (made up of 4 squares and 8 triangles). L1-L2

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).

Start of term quiz or diagnostic exercises (or use simply to get learners into the swing of things!) includes a wide range of questions covering number, measures and data handling.
Two versions – one for E1-E3, one for L1-2.

A fun way of preparing a group for the L2 multiple choice test! 15 questions cover ratios, measures, percentages, fractions, division, area, volume and negative numbers.