Adult Numeracy, Functional Maths, and GCSE Resources

I put this together to explore number calculations and word problems with a mixed group of adult learners, looking at estimating, ways of checking your calculations and ways of reversing calculations.

An activity using mobile phones. Students could also do a warm-up by measuring and weighing real phones (switched off)!

The lesson was designed for an E3 young learner class. The last section, using percentage changes, might suit stronger learners (L1 extension).

Editor’s note
Fully mapped to the Functional Maths criteria. Covers rounding whole nos. and decimals, money, percentages, fractions and area.

The classic example of a tally is keeping track of how many cars of each colour go past in the street, but that is rather awkward to do in practice.

Use this presentation to save having to leave the comfort of the classroom! It is a PowerPoint slideshow of cars of various colours, to be projected onto the board. Tell learners to keep a tally of how many cars of each colour appear. Where a car has more than one colour, they should put it under the predominant colour.

E1 learners could focus on simply counting (for instance) all the red cars.

A set of 10 problems. Learners revise choosing the correct operation (addition, subtraction, multiplication or division) and carrying out the calculation correctly.
Ideal for Entry 3 Functional Maths.
Answer sheet provided

Covers geometric drawings, area, perimeter, money, metric measures, tallies, line graphs and much more.
Fully mapped to the Functional Maths criteria and process skills. With answer sheet.

Editor’s note
Wonderful open ended project. Ideal for E3-L2 mixed ability groups.

Mean, Mode, Median and Range: Investigation into house prices.

Students use www.rightmove.co.uk to explore house prices in areas of their choice. For example pairs of students could explore house prices in different cities in the UK.

They will need access to computers. You will also need to establish criteria before they start to collect their data so that like for like houses are being compared. For example all of the groups are to compare prices of 2 bedroom flats in the cities of their choice.

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.

This resource has been designed using ideas in the popular Celebrity BMI resource (From Janet Wilkins – see below) already available on Skillsworkshop but adapted to suit the needs of Entry/ Level 1 learners.

An animated PowerPoint presentation (86 slides) that covers several topics: Fractions & Percentages;Units of Measure; Charts & Graphs; Ratio, Scale & Proportion; Perimeter, Area & Volume; Averages and Range. There are also some links for a planned inclusion of other topics at a later date (Time & Money, Tables and Formulae).

This presentation can be used in class, driven by the teacher, but it is also ideal as a guide for self-study.

Not really suitable for handouts, as there are many animated sequences that would overlap on the printed page.

A set of cards to cut out and ideally put in plastic balls or a jazzy box. Aimed at E2- E3 Functional Skills learners as an ice breaker, introductory lesson or for revision. Students need to work out the question and identify the maths skills they are using to answer it. Best printed onto card.
Questions are aimed to appeal to young adult students – e.g. clubbing, Facebook, food, mobiles, etc.
Questions cover the 4 operations, money, time, shapes and more.
26 cards. Includes Functional Maths mapping chart.