Use the Thrifty Minnesota Website to Build Essential Skills

Thrifty Minnesota is a website that advertises free, low-cost and discounted events occurring all over the state. The site can be used from Beginning English Language all the way up through GED and Transitions to build learners’ digital, literacy and community-engagement skills. Here are a few ideas to try with your learners. Provide scaffolding and support by modeling the activity yourself, asking a learner to model it for the class and by having learners work in pairs. 

• Beginning ELL  Via your class website, email or other means, provide learners with links from the Thrifty Minnesota website to a few events happening in their area. It will be important to find two to three events for them to look at in advance as they will likely not have the literacy or digital skills to find the events on their own. Have them click on the event’s link and do the following: talk about the picture and find the day, date and time of the event. Learners can then write the events in the correct space on a paper calendar. Support learners’ understanding of what the event is with additional pictures and videos that you find. 
• Intermediate and Advanced ELL  Learners use the search box to find an event in their area that most interests them. Model how to find the ads on the site and close them to help learners focus on the events more easily. With a partner or group, learners then prepare a short sales pitch for the event. Finally, students present their pitches to the rest of the class.
• GED and Transitions  Identify and analyze the ads on the site. Learners determine what the ad is selling, who the intended audience is and why the advertiser chose this site to publicize their product.   

Refer to this list of Northstar Digital Literacy Standards for additional inspiration for skills you could target using the Thrifty Minnesota website. Have learners report back if they actually attend an event as a result of doing any of these activities. 

For questions or comments about this Tutor Tip, contact Tutor Training Coordinator, Meghan Boyle at mboyle@literacymn.org. Shout out to Literacy Minnesota’s Technology Administrator and Trainer, Jason Brazier, for sharing the idea of Thrifty Minnesota, which inspired this tip!