What Is Happy Numbers? Teacher Review

Educatorstechnology
11:57 PM
math resources, Math websites

Happy Numbers is an educational platform that offers individualized math instruction to Pre-K to grade 5 students. Using gamified exercises, students explore the world of math with the help of Dino. Happy Numbers allows teachers to create classes, add students, and provide differentiated learning experience. As students work on their math tasks, Happy Numbers saves their progress and teachers can access detailed reports on students performance, identify learning gaps, and provide timely feedback.

Image credit: Happynumbers.com

The goal of Happy Numbers is to provide students with an individualized learning pathway to boost their math learning. This is done through individualized math tasks tailored specifically for the learning needs of each student. When students first log in, they take Placement Test and, based on its results, they ‘enter the curriculum at the point that is right for them’.

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As they explore the world of math with Dino, students get to build their own rocket and dive into the universe in a journey to discover math planets and hatch dinosaur eggs. Students are required to complete their weekly target in order for them to uncover the content of the found eggs.

After taking their placement test, students start working on exercises that correspond to their grade-level skills. Using a gamified approach, exercises are delivered in an interactive and engaging environment with auditory stimuli and beautiful visual graphics. These exercises are 80% conceptual and 20% fluency. Exercises and tasks are arranged in a progressive way with increasing levels of difficulty. Each exercise unlocks the move to the next one.

Happy Numbers provides students with the option to work alone or seek help from Dino. Immediate feedback in the form of tips and colored hints is offered to help students stay focused and enhance their independent learning.

Teachers monitor the whole progress, intervene to customize lessons, and provide timely feedback to help students enhance students performance. Watch this video to learn more about students experience on Happy Numbers.

When students first log in to Happy Numbers they are provided a placement test. This is an adaptive test for students K-5 and consists of 20 multiple choice questions for each grade level and lasts between 20 to 30 minutes. Students have the option to listen to the questions read out loud to them. The test includes ‘mathematics tasks aligned with the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics and other state mathematics standards’.

Placement test is a key element in Happy Numbers curriculum because the results of this test determine students grade-level skills and helps place them at the right starting point in the program. Students can take the test at one sitting or they can come back to it and pick up where they left off. Happy Numbers automatically saves their progress. As a teacher, you will be able to track students progress in the test and know their overall readiness for math instruction.

Happy Numbers curriculum is organized into the following categories: Pre-kindergarten, Kindergarten, Grade 1, Grade 2, Grade 3, Grade 4, and Grade 5. Each curriculum consists of several modules with each module containing a number of topics. When students click on a topic they can access the embedded tasks together with instructions on how to work on them.

For instance, grade 5 curriculum consists of five modules: Place Value and Decimal Fractions, Multi-Digit Whole Number and Decimal Fraction Operations, Addition and Subtraction of Fractions, Multiplication and Division of Fractions and Decimal Fractions, and Algebraic Expressions.

Happy Numbers provides teachers with detailed reports about students overall performance. Teachers can access individual student reports or whole class reports. Based on students reports, teachers can further differentiate their math instruction, make key instructional decisions and share results with parents. The Reports tab consists of the following elements:

Weekly Dashboard: Features the performance of both the whole class and individual students during the week. Teachers can see how many students logged in to the program during the week, how many of them complete their the weekly time and task targets, and more.
Yearly Dashboard: This report provides teachers with an overview of the performance of whole class during the year. It covers the following areas: class distribution, overall progress, next grade readiness and student progress.
Activity Stream: This is ‘a clearly-structured report for teachers to use in assessing student progress, providing feedback to students, or sharing information with parents.’

When you register an account with Happy Numbers you are offered a free trial period to test the platform after which you need go premium to continue using the site. Happy Numbers offers different standard Pro plans including: Teacher License for a single class that costs $14.50 per student per year, a School License for multiple classes and costs $14.50 per student per year, and a District License which costs $14.50 per student per year.

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