If you’re using Eureka Math/Engage New York and you teach Kindergarten (or 1st or 2nd Grade), this post is for you!
Teachers in grades 1-5 know that Zearn provides a lot of great online resources that compliment the Eureka Math/Engage Ne York curriculum, but if you teach Kindergarten, you’ve probably noticed that the program is a little weak for our youngest kiddos. It doesn’t track student success at that level, or have any kind of data that you can analyze after the students have been using the program.
(If you missed our post on Zearn and you teach grades 1-5, go read it now!)
Recently, a teacher shared a new program with me that can help fill in this gap in your data! Happy Numbers (https://happynumbers.com/) is tailored to Kinder-2nd grade students and the modules match up exactly with Eureka Math. It is a subscription-based tool, but it isn’t as expensive as many programs I’ve seen (than $200/year/classroom)! They offer a free 30-day trial for you to see what it can do. It is compatible with multiple devices running multiple platforms – iOS, Android, and Chrome.
In this teacher’s Kindergarten classroom, her students have been using this program and it really helps her see exactly where the misunderstandings are. She showed me one particular student in her dashboard that was struggling with missing addends. The program won’t let the student move on when it realizes they are struggling and it alerts the teacher that the student is having trouble. In many online programs, often the Kindergarten content is either too hard and you wonder if the people who wrote it ever taught real Kindergarten students, or too watered down where students are really just playing games, so the data you get isn’t very helpful or relevant to the teacher. Happy Numbers does a great job of being on-point for the topics Kindergarten students need and nicely aligns with Eureka Math. For example, you could be on Module 4, Lesson 6 in Eureka Math, so you assign that lesson for students to work through in Happy Numbers. Not only will the content match up exactly, it’s a great way to double-dip by having students use technology as well!
Usernames and passwords with Happy Numbers are also much easier for younger students. Teachers can customize login information without running into the “username already taken” issue that happens sometimes with Zearn. Simplified login information makes it easier for five- and six-year-olds to login and get to work, without wasting valuable class time trying to remember their username and password.
Bottom Line: Happy Numbers is a great, user-friendly tool for teachers to use with their Kindergarten students that really goes in-depth into math concepts that follow the Eureka Math/Engage New York modules.
Check it out and let us know what you think!