Academics' Choice Award™ Winner
Numberella Deluxe Edition Level 1
Ages: 6 - 13Price: $69.99
Type: Game
By Numberella LLC
Description
Numberella is the brainchild of Alexander F.L. Newberry, a London based tutor who specialises in accelerating numeracy and transforming the results of children who struggle in maths. The game was developed in a live teaching environment, in response to challenges faced when working with children who were dismissive of traditional pedagogies. The ideas contained within the game were all trialled by children, and anything they didn't like, wasn't included. This is why kids love playing Numberella — in a way, they designed it.
Numberella works at many different levels. Youngsters adore the way that they can use The Thief to steal each other's Antcoins, or Miss A. Go to make someone skip a turn. They love Hijacking each other's questions, and dice duelling each other for the winnings. Parents love how using Harry Hijack lets them take pressure off a child who isn't sure of an answer — but still gives the child a chance to win. Teachers love the simple fact that Numberella makes kids enthusiastic about maths.
The game also has an academic edge — each of the 3 levels is pegged to the US Common Core Syllabus for grades 2-4, 5-7 and 8+. In one hour of game play, 4 children will complete at least 300 questions, rapidly accelerating their mental arithmetic and fact recall. In a school trial, 100% of students using Numberella twice a week improved their grade. Numberella has been adopted by schools and parents across the U.S. and has been included as part of the curriculum in Bulloch County Georgia.
Review Highlights:
Numberella is an engaging game that can be played by a variety of age levels. I liked how differentiation is built into the game so that it isn't necessarily the most mathematically proficient player that wins. It's also a fun way to practice a variety of math concepts and skills.
The easy version of the game is quick paced and has more relevant academic skills covered than one could mention. Students are doing problems in their heads, they are having to make change with the coins and they are being quizzed on things that aren't even math related, but tie in nicely with the game. Also, being able to set your own time for the game is really nice for classroom teacher because the game is something you could play in 10 minutes. Often, when playing games, you don't have time to finish and it's hard to reset the game to continue at a later date. With numberella, you can set a time and play for 10 minutes and still have a fun game.
The advanced version of the game is pretty complicated and might be targeted for students older than 4th grade. I could see this being used in a club or after school program where you have more time to devote to teaching a game.
There's a LOT packed into this little box. It's well thought out and developed. At first, my students wanted ant coins worth 50 because they were running out of coins. However, by only having 5, 10 and 100 value coins, they had to make change which made them unknowingly have to do yet another math skill!
Fun game for building math skills! Students practice mental calculations, counting, money skills, taking turns, patterns, and more.
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