Extended Activity

With an extended activity, the tutor uses a theme of interest to the learner to develop a series of active and authentic numeracy “units” such as the one outlined below.

• Use lessons covering the following concepts before doing this extended activity:
  • Percentages
  • Chequing accounts
  • Savings accounts
  • Wages – including deductions
  • Household expenses
  • Grocery shopping
  • Budgets
  • Reconciling a bank statement
• Objective: Give your learner a real-life situation that requires the use of all he has learned, in a realistic situation.
• Give your learner “a life”:
  • In advance, write out different scenarios that your learner may have (for example, single parent with one child age four; married with spouse not working with three children ages four, five and eight).
  • Write out different jobs – server, sales clerk, waiter, teacher, nurse, etc., and include his salary, any benefits he gets, how often he gets paid and so on.
  • Give him a cheque book and a certain balance to start with.
• Inform your learner he will have to find a place to live. Have several newspapers ready for him to find a suitable place to fit his “family.” He has to write a cheque to you for rent, deposit, and so on. He will also have to write out cheques for all his bills and extra spending that might pop up. Have him write two cheques per week for miscellaneous items. Ask your learner to draw from a number of slips of paper you have prepared describing various scenarios, for example, to determine whether or not he has a car and whether or not he has to make car payments.
• Tell your learner that all cheques go to you. (You are the bank.) Every learning session, he receives a different statement about things that can happen to a person in real life (for example, child needs braces; pay orthodontist $200 each month for the next 10 months). At the end of two weeks, give him a bank statement and have him reconcile his cheque book.
• Items to be turned in include the following:
  • budget – per month
  • revised budgets – if his first one didn’t work
  • deposit slips for all deposits going into the chequing account.
• Extend the problem even further to buying a house, developing a long-term financial plan, learning about credit and investing, and so on.

There are a great many opportunities to blend in reading, writing and spelling in this activity.

Adapted from Herod, L. (2000). Numeracy for adult literacy learners. Winnipeg, Manitoba: Adult Literacy and Continuing Education, Manitoba Education and Training. For this publication www.edu.gov.mb.ca/ael/all/publications/numeracy_revised_oct00.pdf, for a list of all publications www.edu.gov.mb.ca/ael/all/publications.html. Used with permission.

Handout 9.9