Small Business Sunday with MMMathMania

MMMathMania

With the second wave of COVID-19 upon us, I have decided to bring back Small Business Sundays! Small businesses are the backbone of our economy and we need to support them however we can.

MMMathMania

 

MMMathMania is our next Small Business Sunday to have their turn in the spotlight!

My name is Vanessa McLeod and I am a cofounder of a new math social media presence called MMMathMania, along with my friends, Silvia Greco, Nadine Taylor Wilson, Erin Radloff, Ashley Elford, and Jamie Whalen. We are a group of elementary teachers from Edmonton who have a passion for teaching math through hands-on games and open ended warm ups. 

Our goal is to build a large following so we can spread our love of math far and wide and inspire love for, and confidence with, math in children around the world! We hope to continue spreading the joy of teaching and learning math through games and to make the job of teachers and parents a little bit easier, especially during COVID!

This fall has been one of the hardest in our teaching careers. So we want to do our part to make it just a little bit easier for our friends and colleagues by providing FREE math games, math warm ups, tutorial videos, and resources each week. Our business is purely a virtual one at this point in time. We are working hard at growing our online presence (and have an ultimate goal of eventually creating our own website). 

You can find MMMathMania on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Teachers Pay Teachers (but remember, ALL of their downloads are free)!! They are more than happy to answer questions via email at mmmathmania@gmail.com

MMMathMania

What is Unique About Your Business or What Made You Choose This Type of Business?

We feel our business model is unique. We offer ALL of our products (math games, math warm ups, video tutorials) for FREE on all of our social media platforms. We also recently ran a week of virtual game-based math support sessions for students called MathPLAY. We had a great response and are looking forward to offering more of these free sessions in the future! We have decided that no matter how successful we may become, we will never charge parents or educators for our resources.

We are passionate about teaching math. We get excited about it and we get our students excited about it. We have heard of so many people who have had a negative experience with math and it shattered their confidence. We want to make it cool to love math and be good at it!

What is Your Favourite Small Business (Aside From Your Own)?

We’re not sure if they qualify as a small business, to us they are math gurus, but Box Cars and One Eyed Jacks. They are pioneers in the math game industry. Between the three of us, we have attended many of their fabulous PD sessions and brought a lot of their books and specialty dice! We are like kids in a candy store when looking at all their math resources!

Another local small business we support and admire is Forever Strong Fitness, run by Caroline Botting. Caroline Botting is a fitness professional who offers fun online fitness classes several times a week. Her classes are fun, affordable, and child friendly. She specializes in postpartum fitness and is a pro at offering modifications to meet everyone’s needs. I do her classes diligently each week to help me manage my stress and anxiety levels, and to keep my body healthy.

MMMathMania

If You Had One Piece of Advice to Someone Just Starting Out, What Would It Be?

Follow your passion and dream big! When you do something you are passionate about, it doesn’t feel like work! Another piece of advice is don’t say “if” say “when”. Put your dreams out to the universe and watch it respond! We have been blown away by the positive response we have received, it has surpassed any expectations we had! We are so grateful for everyone who has joined our online MMMathMania community!

What Are Your Long-Term Business Goals?

To create a world wide community of children who feel confident and excited when doing math! We want to connect with educators and parents around the world to provide them with FREE resources including games, warm ups, and video tutorials that they can use with their students or children.

In terms of our business goals, since we are committed to keeping our resources 100% free forever, we are trying to build a large following so that maybe one day we can generate revenue from advertisers/sponsors and/or speaking engagements. We are also looking into one day maybe selling some MMMathMania merchandise (or “merch” as the kids call it!). You know, maybe selling some MMMathMania branded playing cards, funny Math t-shirts, hats, masks, etc.

MMMathMania

What Is Your Funniest/Weirdest/Most Memorable Experience With A Customer or Client?

We are elementary school teachers. Funny and weird moments happen on the daily lol :)! 

I recently received a funny letter from a student. It said “Dear Ms. M. I like math just like you and the thing that I have differently from you is that I am also good at art”. It made me laugh out loud – kids are so honest – let’s just say she isn’t wrong, I can barely draw a stickman!

Thank you, Vanessa, and all of the other amazing math teachers, from MMMathMania for participating in our Small Business Sunday series!

Don’t forget, if you want to help support MMMathMania, or if you are a parent struggling to help your children with their math homework, or even their online studies, please check out all of the links at the beginning of the article!

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