Section 4 (optional section)

Numeracy Activities

This section is optional. Choose the activites that will best suit your program.

The following are some activities tutors could use with learners. Often, if we have an opportunity to practise a particular activity, we feel more comfortable using it. You can do all the activities that follow or choose the ones you want to use. You may even find other activities to use from the Internet and other resources listed at the beginning of this unit.

Activity A (optional activity)

Survey

You can do this activity on a wide variety of topics. You can decide on your own topic question or use the one provided. If you have a large group, you may want to divide into pairs or small groups and work with a number of questions.

Why choose this activity?

You may want to give your tutors an opportunity to do a survey. Tutors can use surveys with all levels of learners and they are a fun activity. They can be made easy for those with limited skills or more difficult for those with more skills.

Variation

By walking around asking one another to answer the survey questions, you introduce movement and help energize the group. You could have more than one survey question on the go, with pairs or small groups asking their own survey question. They can then tally and discuss their data.


Group activity

Materials and equipment

Flip chart and markers
Paper for a tally sheet
Graph paper

Preparation

Review the activity before using it with tutors.

STEP-BY-STEP PROCESS

  1. Inform tutors you are going to conduct a survey. Brainstorm with tutors some possible survey questions. Decide as a group which survey question they would like to use or you can use one of the following questions:
    • Where do you shop?
    • Why do you shop where you do?
    • When do you do your grocery shopping?

With medium to large groups

  1. Write the survey question on the flip chart. If you have a larger group, have two or three related survey questions and write them each on a piece of flip chart paper.
  2. Ask tutors to create a tally sheet. First, they write one of the questions at the top of the page. Then they draw columns and rows to record their answers. The rows are to record the name of each person they interview and the columns record answers they think they might receive. Allow tutors to figure out how the columns should be named. This is part of the learning experience.