How Math Doesn't Have to Be a Nightmare: 'Make it a Game!' with Betsy Mays

Listen to today's episode, "How Math Doesn't Have to Be a Nightmare: 'Make it a Game!' with Betsy Mays" as Math teacher/math curriculum and instruction specialist (and a mom on a mission to make learning math fun for the whole family), Betsy Mays joins Dori Durbin! 

Do you or your child dread math time? Games are the secret for making math exciting! Math teacher Betsy Mays shares her passion for experiential math learning. Discover Betsy's carefully designed games that build math fluency through play. With degrees from ASU and NAU, this mom and math guru is on a mission to prove math can be fun for the whole family. Get game recommendations, teaching tips, and insights to transform math struggles into math success!

• Stopping the Math Overwhelm
• What Makes Math SEEM Scary
• How Responsible Are Parents?
• Why Betsy LOVES Math
• How Can You Brush Up Your Math
• Right Answer vs The Process
• Betsy's Math Games
• Math Passion
• Future Math Games?
• Money Math Struggles
• Parent's Math Mistakes
• What Kids Should Know About Math
• Find Betsy and Her Math Games

---> Thinking about writing a kids' book?  Book a Chat with Dori:
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More about Betsy :
Betsy has her bachelors from Arizona State, Masters degree from Northern Arizona.
Mom and math teacher on a mission to make learning math fun for the whole family.
She is also the Founder and Creator of Games by Absolute Zero.

Find Betsy's  Book:
https://www.amazon.com/stores/AbsoluteZero/page/7D46052F-01EE-4033-B79E-58132EE46561?ref_=ast_bln

Follow Betsy:
https://www.gamesbyabsolutezero.com/math-teacher-creates-games-that-make-learning-math-fun-home-or-school
https://www.instagram.com/absolutezerogame
https://www.facebook.com/absolutezerogame

Did you love this episode? Discover more here:
 https://thepowerofkidsbooks.buzzsprout.com/2115397

More about Dori Durbin:
Dori Durbin is a Christian wife, mom, author, illustrator, and a kids’ book coach who after experiencing a life-changing illness, quickly switched gears to follow her dream. She creates kids’ books to provide a fun and safe passageway for kids and parents to dig deeper and experience empowered lives. Dori also coaches non-fiction authors and aspiring authors to “kid-size” their content into informational and engaging kids’ books!
 
Buy Dori's Kids' Books:
https://www.amazon.com/stores/Dori-Durbin/author/B087BFC2KZ

Follow Dori
http://instagram.com/dori_durbin
http://www.doridurbin.com
http://www.facebook.com/dori_durbin
Email: hello@doridurbin.com

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 3:07 Stopping the Math Overwhelm
• 4:27 What Makes Math SEEM Scary
• 5:30 How Responsible Are Parents?
• 6:15 Why Betsy LOVES Math
• 7:10 How Can You Brush Up Your Math
• 8:24 Right Answer vs The Process
• 10:50 Betsy's Math Games
• 17:17 Math Passion
• 18:18 Future Math Games?
• 20:20 Money Math Struggles
• 22:00 Parent's Math Mistakes
• 22:53 What Kids Should Know About Math
• 25:00 Find Betsy and Her Math Games

Transcript

[00:00:00] Betsy Mays: That's where as parents. We need to support our children's learning at home and realize if they're not ready or they're still struggling, give them the support they need and vice versa. If they're ready to move on, we can enrich them at home as well and help them move on and learn more faster than maybe the classroom can do.

[00:00:18] Dori Durbin: Welcome to the power of kids books, where we believe books are a catalyst to inspire and empower change. I'm your host, Dori Durbin.

[00:00:27] Dori Durbin: Does the mere mention of the word math subtract the joy in your home? Do math problems cause emotional reactions that really add up? Does your lack of math confidence multiply your desire not even to utter the word?

[00:00:42] Dori Durbin: I have help for you. 

[00:00:44] Dori Durbin: Today's guest is a mom. A math teacher, a curriculum coordinator, and a math interventionist with a passion to make learning math fun. And if you can imagine it, actually fun for the whole family. She has a website called Games by Absolute Zero that [00:01:00] aims at making math fun one game at a time.

[00:01:03] Dori Durbin: Welcome to the show, Betsy 

[00:01:04] Betsy Mays: Thank you, Dori, for having me. I'm psyched. I'm excited to be here!

[00:01:07] Dori Durbin: Thank you for being here. This is a struggle for a lot of people. It's a struggle for adults, and they really have this experience, maybe their own childhood experience, where they they have just a negative experience of math that follows them through adulthood.

[00:01:23] Dori Durbin: And it makes parenting and trying to teach your kid math really hard. 

[00:01:27] Betsy Mays: It does, I agree. I've run across that myself, helping my own children, and then working with kids and parents at the schools. I've noticed 

[00:01:34] Dori Durbin: that a lot. So do you find that there's a common theme as far as where parents have this struggle?

[00:01:42] Dori Durbin: Is it early? Later in life? What? What have you 

[00:01:44] Betsy Mays: noticed? It just really depends on everybody's experience, but there's usually that brick wall that the parents and kids. Tends to be middle school more than anything else because that's when we start getting into some more abstract ideas like integers and [00:02:00] algebra.

[00:02:00] Betsy Mays: It's not just your basic computation. So I'd say middle school is where most people, parents start to struggle helping their children. But sometimes it can be even earlier than that because a lot of times we're teaching math maybe a little different than you've learned it and that makes it tricky. 

[00:02:17] Dori Durbin: I remember when my kids started the new math.

[00:02:20] Dori Durbin: And my oldest son learned a lot of what I had learned and my daughter only two years later learned new math. And I thought, what is going on here? And it was supposed to be easier and I was trying to be supportive and I was like I can't help you. This is in third grade. I can't help you.

[00:02:37] Dori Durbin: So I don't know if that's some of it too, just the different approaches like you're talking about. 

[00:02:42] Betsy Mays: Right now the stress is on we want kids to see and understand what they're doing, not just. Learn algorithms. So we want them to understand and have a conceptual understanding of the math, not just learn, what we call the algorithm or the tricks to the math.

[00:02:56] Betsy Mays: So that's what's different for parents than we're trying to teach the kids [00:03:00] right now. But it's ultimately the same. We wanna get the correct answer and get it quickly so we can move on. 

[00:03:07] Dori Durbin: If you have little kids, let's say. And you maybe have this math phobia of how do you start to introduce them to math, maybe in more common ways that aren't overwhelming to you or your kid?

[00:03:21] Betsy Mays: One, I think is as a parent, to be really careful and know that how you perceive something you'll. Project onto your Children. If you're not careful, even with just facial expressions, right? So we need to be careful and conscious of what we're letting our Children see in us. But then it's to make it fun and to realize, even for yourself, how many times you use math cooking thinking when you're cooking, how much are you using map with your measuring cups?

[00:03:46] Betsy Mays: And proportioning it, let's say you want half the recipe or doubling the recipe. We use tons of math when we're doing that. Or if you're in any kind of sewing or building or construction or arts and crafts. All of those things that involve [00:04:00] measurement are math. So those are fun ways that we can explore math with our kids that isn't paper and pencil.

[00:04:07] Dori Durbin: Yeah, I remember cooking with my my mom and I would just dump stuff in and she'd say we can see what happens, and that's more relaxed. It's more of like a. Okay, this didn't work out because we didn't measure because versus having it perfect the first time, 

[00:04:26] Betsy Mays: too. Exactly.

[00:04:27] Dori Durbin: Exactly. So is there a lot of fear with math, too, because math is so absolute? 

[00:04:36] Betsy Mays: That's part of it, and I think, too, maybe just the way we learned it wasn't made fun, right? So we would go into math class, it was pretty much paper, pencil, workbooks, worksheets, maybe listening to a teacher explain and do a couple of examples, and then we were expected just to get it and move on.

[00:04:55] Betsy Mays: And everybody learns differently. Some of us are more visual learners, some of us are [00:05:00] more kinesthetic learners, so I think that's where trying to expose people to math concepts in different ways is helpful. And also really we'll develop at our own rate and pace. Not everybody is ready for multiplication in third grade, but that's when we teach it.

[00:05:18] Betsy Mays: So if you don't get it in third grade, you're struggling from then on. So realizing that there are developmental differences in people and taking that into consideration, I think is another thing we need to do. 

[00:05:30] Dori Durbin: And is that where, as a parent, if you notice that, let's say your child isn't ready for the next level, is that your responsibility to see that and tell the teachers what do you do with that?

[00:05:42] Betsy Mays: That's tough because in schools, public schools, especially, There's curriculum, there's standards, there's pacing guides that teachers have to follow, so they do their best to intervene and to give kids the accommodations and the support they need, but they've got a tough job.

[00:05:56] Betsy Mays: That's where his parents. We need to support our [00:06:00] children's learning at home and realize if they're not ready or they're still struggling, give them the support they need and vice versa. If they're ready to move on, we can enrich them at home as well and help them move on and learn more faster than maybe the classroom can do.

[00:06:15] Dori Durbin: So let me ask you from your own personal experience. How was math fun for you when you were growing up? What do you remember about it that you 

[00:06:22] Betsy Mays: enjoyed? I think it helped that my mom was a math teacher. Okay. 

[00:06:28] Dori Durbin: Insider track. 

[00:06:29] Betsy Mays: Yeah, so I had that, but I remember her and my brother struggling, and my mom just saying, I don't understand why you don't get this, at the kitchen table.

[00:06:37] Betsy Mays: So that helped, and I guess I was lucky that It just came to me and I understood the rules and I learned if I memorized the rules and followed them. It made sense. It wasn't till I became a teacher myself and I realized everybody didn't learn that way. So I had to get creative, do some research and figure out, okay, I explained it the way I know it to my students.

[00:06:57] Betsy Mays: Half of them didn't get it. So now what can [00:07:00] I do to help that half? Understand this concept. And that's where I started exploring different ways of teaching and eventually led me to coming up with games to help support different 

[00:07:10] Dori Durbin: standards. Gotcha, gotcha. Okay, so if I'm a parent who knows that, let's say, the math in the classroom isn't, my child just is not connecting with it, are there ways for me to figure out what would be the best approach, whether it's kinesthetic, visual, tactile, like how do I figure that out for my child?

[00:07:33] Betsy Mays: I'd say try them all and see what clicks, right? That's one thing and probably by now, your child pretty well and know what type of learner they are. So you would gravitate towards that, but it can't hurt to try a little bit of everything. And there are so many resources available to us now with the Internet.

[00:07:50] Betsy Mays: That weren't available when my children were young because they're now adults. So that makes it a lot easier. And another tip going off to the side a little [00:08:00] bit. There are so many resources that you can Google to get you refreshed as a parent before trying to help your child. So even as a teacher or when I was tutoring, if there was a topic like graphing linear equations, Oh my goodness, it's been a while since I've done that.

[00:08:13] Betsy Mays: I would just Google it, watch a few people. On YouTube, whether it was Khan Academy or some other lessons, refresh my memory, then I was able to help my students. 

[00:08:24] Dori Durbin: So really then, it goes back to what you said before it's getting to the right answer, not necessarily the actual having the right process, would you say?

[00:08:33] Betsy Mays: I would agree a hundred percent it there's multiple ways to get the right answer and that's one thing more teachers are being conscious of themselves and accepting of like when I was in school when I first started teaching you had to show the steps that way I taught it I had to show the steps the way the teacher taught it but now we're realizing that if kids understand the concept can explain their reasoning show their work and get a correct answer [00:09:00] if they got a little creative in the process that's a good thing.

[00:09:04] Betsy Mays: So 

[00:09:05] Dori Durbin: I'm laughing because I my son is very smart and he would come up with answers, but not know how they got them. And so the trouble, the struggle we had was having them actually write down the process. He took to get there. And so I, I'm assuming that's probably, he's not the only one that does that, or 

[00:09:25] Betsy Mays: there's lots of people.

[00:09:26] Betsy Mays: The thing with that too, that's fun to ask is if your child comes up with a creative way to solve something, say I wonder if that works all the time, because sometimes there's just. Like a phenomenon or, you get lucky, right? You did something and you got lucky. So let's see if that works every time.

[00:09:41] Betsy Mays: Let's have another problem that's the same process y, but different numbers and see if that works again. Let's try it again. If it works consistently you've got a new way to do something. But maybe you just got lucky the first time and it's not going to work every time. 

[00:09:55] Dori Durbin: I love that. That's great.

[00:09:56] Dori Durbin: Because then you're not telling them, no, your process didn't work. You're like [00:10:00] experiment to find out whether it does 

[00:10:01] Betsy Mays: or not. Exactly. And that's what mathematicians and scientists do, right? 

[00:10:05] Dori Durbin: Hi friends, sorry for the interruption, but let me just throw something at you. You've got kids. You know what life is like, and you have the expertise to help another parent. Maybe you're a professional. Maybe you were an expert who has their own platform and maybe you're not, maybe you're just someone who would love to write a kid's book. If that's you and we're talking directly to your heart right now you should definitely book a chat with me let's talk about your book and get it in action okay back to the podcast

[00:10:39] Dori Durbin: Okay. We got off track a tiny bit and that was my fault. So with your actual website, it really came from the concept that math needed to be fun.

[00:10:49] Dori Durbin: It needed to be. Something tangible and enjoyable for families to do. Can you tell us a little bit about some of your games and what they do and how that approach is [00:11:00] echoed? 

[00:11:00] Betsy Mays: Okay, great. Thank you. Back story on how I got here teaching middle school math for 20 years. I wanted... Kids to look forward to coming to my class and be excited about what we might be doing.

[00:11:11] Betsy Mays: I couldn't play games every day in the classroom, but I incorporated them as much as I could. And then when we got to teaching integers, positive and negative numbers, there weren't any cards out there that had them on. So I was saying, red was negative, black was positive, and using a regular deck of cards.

[00:11:25] Betsy Mays: And it worked okay, but kids had trouble remembering that when I wanted them to be focusing on Learning the integer operation rules. So my own children that were still in school, they were in middle school, high school at the time, said, Mom, why don't you just make your own deck? Since there's not one out on the market that you want.

[00:11:41] Betsy Mays: So my children helped me and we delved into how do you make a deck of cards? And my daughter was my graphic designer and she designed the cards for me. And my son helped me with the rules. And I Googled, how do Get a deck of cards produced, and how do you sell them? And that's how the business started. [00:12:00] So the first game was an integer game called Absolute Zero.

[00:12:03] Betsy Mays: My daughter came up with the name and the logo, and it really was a family affair. And now I have four different games, all focusing on what I consider to be foundational math skills. And then I have several free games on my website that parents can print and play. That's awesome. 

[00:12:20] Dori Durbin: I saw one of them. I think it was it 10 fish.

[00:12:24] Dori Durbin: Yeah. Yeah. What was that 

[00:12:26] Betsy Mays: one about? Okay. As a middle school math teacher, I was surprised how many kids couldn't add and subtract within 10 readily. 7 plus 1 is 10. They couldn't tell me 3 immediately. And I'm thinking, this is a primary skill. This is something we should be learning in kindergarten, first, second grade.

[00:12:42] Betsy Mays: And you really need that skill to be able to add, subtract, multiply, divide. When you're borrowing and carrying, decomposing and composing numbers all that is the foundation for math. So I thought what can I do to help kids learn that and become fluent at it? And that's where I came up with 10 fish.

[00:12:58] Betsy Mays: Each card has a 10 frame on [00:13:00] it. So if the card is the number three, it has a 10 frame on it with three fish in it. Then you can see that there are seven missing. 10 frames are used in the elementary curriculum. So if your child's in a public school or even private school setting, they're seeing 10 frames.

[00:13:15] Betsy Mays: That's one thing when I gave it to my neighbor as a test game, because she had young children, she's My kids are coming home with worksheets that have these 10 frames on them. I'm like, yeah, I know. So it's something that kids are seeing at home and school, but it's visual. It helps them see what they need.

[00:13:29] Betsy Mays: It's like dough fish. Kids love playing. Another fun story about 10 fish. When I first created it, my husband, who's not in education said, Bessie, this is a stupid game. There's no rules. There's no, there's rules, but there's no real way to keep score. I just don't see the point of it. I said, I think it's good.

[00:13:45] Betsy Mays: So we went to a homeschool convention. Little kids were coming up to my booth and playing 10 fish. They were laughing. They're having fun. And my husband looked at me and goes, Oh, I guess it really is a good game. So I go, Okay, thank you. But it's received the Parents Choice [00:14:00] Foundation Award and the academics on brain toy award as has absolute zero.

[00:14:04] Betsy Mays: And They're both bestsellers on Amazon as well. So both games have really been successful and hopefully helped a lot of people. 

[00:14:13] Dori Durbin: Now, I noticed 10 fish had an activity book, I believe. 

[00:14:17] Betsy Mays: And that's sold separately. I do have a bundle. I think I'm out of stock right now. So I'm getting ready to provide, get that stocked up for the holidays.

[00:14:23] Betsy Mays: And it's a coloring book, mazes, number games. It's just an activity book for children that accompany the game. 

[00:14:29] Dori Durbin: Oh, fun. How fun. And so that's two of your games. What were the other 

[00:14:32] Betsy Mays: two? There's an absolute zero junior, which is an easier version of absolute zero. It's got 10 frames on it. It's got smaller numbers just things to introduce kids to the concept.

[00:14:43] Betsy Mays: And then hunch is another game involving integers. I noticed that kids had trouble with distance on a number line. So for example, if I had a negative three and a positive two, how far apart are they? And kids want to just subtract and say one, when really they're five apart. And so it's really [00:15:00] subtracting of numbers.

[00:15:01] Betsy Mays: So I created this game, Hunch, where it's a guessing game. And let's say I, and the cards are from negative five to positive five. So I'm going to guess and say, I think it's going to be a three. I turned the card over and it was a negative two. So how far off was my guess? It was five off. So that's my score for that hand.

[00:15:19] Betsy Mays: There's a vertical number line printed on each card with the number represented, so kids can count how far off their guesses were to aid them. That's one thing I like to do with my games is have support built into the game itself so that kids can get support and they can check each other too. If I just say it's five, how do I know you're right?

[00:15:38] Betsy Mays: I can look and count and make sure. That's 

[00:15:40] Dori Durbin: really cool. That's brilliant, actually, because I think I was one of those kids that said it was one. 

[00:15:44] Betsy Mays: Yeah, a lot of kids are, a lot of people are right. You're just in. So that's another game. That's fun. It's a guessing game, which you don't usually get a guess in math.

[00:15:53] Betsy Mays: But it has a lot of, and if you're keeping score, it's a separate score sheet. It's a little, it's not complicated, but there's a lot [00:16:00] of math involved in that. Because you're adding or subtracting, and you have a running total, and the person closest to zero at the end wins, and you've got to decide if you're off by five, you want to add that five year running score or subtract it, which will get you closer to zero.

[00:16:12] Betsy Mays: So there's a lot of thinking that goes on to that game. 

[00:16:15] Dori Durbin: That sounds really fun. So that one, what is the age group on that one? Okay, so 

[00:16:20] Betsy Mays: like Hunch and Absolute Zero were developed for middle school, 6th, grade. But this past two years, when I was doing math intervention at a Title I school, I was playing both games with 3rd and 4th graders.

[00:16:32] Betsy Mays: Because I have support built in, they can do it. They realize that red is negative, black is positive, and you just So if I want your reds to equal your blacks and then you'll have zero in your hand, so if I have a red three and a red four and a black seven, the reds equal the black, that makes zero.

[00:16:50] Betsy Mays: And they loved playing and they like to think that they were doing big kid math right when I told them oh this is a middle school game I'm not sure if you can do it oh we can do it Mrs. Mays, and they sure did and they just would beg [00:17:00] to play when they came to my classroom so it was so much fun.

[00:17:02] Betsy Mays: They also wanted Dex to take home. I love that they wanted to take a math game home and play with their family 

[00:17:07] Dori Durbin: and then what about 10 fish? What age group 

[00:17:10] Betsy Mays: is that? Actually, four year olds can start playing that if you have a precocious four year old. If they can count to 10, they can play 10 fish.

[00:17:17] Betsy Mays: But once again, fourth graders like to play and even anyone likes to play. It's just a fun game. So if you like go fish, you will like 10 fish. 

[00:17:26] Dori Durbin: That's, that sounds really fun. I can actually, I think about seeing your own work being admired and people laughing and enjoying it. That's gotta be just super rewarding as the creator too.

[00:17:38] Dori Durbin: It 

[00:17:38] Betsy Mays: is. And it's just been my passion to make math fun. Everyone's a math person. We just have to have the right environment in which to learn it. And I would love to, rid the world of this math phobia or this, I'm not good at math attitude. No one goes around saying, I don't. I can't read or I don't like reading, maybe we're not an avid reader, but people just don't go around saying that.

[00:17:58] Betsy Mays: So I [00:18:00] would like that to be the way it is with math, too, that we appreciate it and just realize how it's all around us and we use it every day. And let's make it fun. 

[00:18:09] Dori Durbin: So it sounds like that was what inspired you as well observing where there were holes in the kids learning, but, caused you to create these games.

[00:18:18] Dori Durbin: Are there future games that you still have on your mind that you haven't created yet? 

[00:18:23] Betsy Mays: Yep, I've got one in the works right now. I was hoping to have it out by the holidays, but I don't think it's going to make it. And it's, it's called Betsy's Barnyard and it's going to be a barn themed game where, Rummy, where you're making sets and runs of cards.

[00:18:37] Betsy Mays: So kids are learning what the difference between a set and a run is. You're learning how to count consecutive numbers, not starting at one. So like we might have a card two, three, four, or four, five, six, those are all elementary standards. Plus it's just, a fun game to play with your family.

[00:18:53] Betsy Mays: That sounds 

[00:18:53] Dori Durbin: really cute. I love that. 

[00:18:55] Betsy Mays: So it's in the works right now. 

[00:18:57] Dori Durbin: Fantastic. Okay, so you probably don't have a [00:19:00] favorite game. 

[00:19:01] Betsy Mays: Of mine or just in general? Of yours. It's hard to say. It's between Absolute Zero and Hunch, or Ten Fish, I'm sorry. Absolute Zero is my, first game, and it's what launched this whole thing.

[00:19:13] Betsy Mays: But Ten Fish is a lot of fun for a lot of people. Another thing, if you don't mind me veering off again, there's so many things parents can do at home. with probably what they have at home. Most families have a deck of cards and a dice or two at home. And I started playing games with my kids.

[00:19:30] Betsy Mays: When they were in elementary school, before I had this business going. And here's one I remember. We would play the marshmallow game. So my son loved mini marshmallows. So I'd take mini marshmallows, put like 10 in the middle of the table. We'd have two dice or a deck of cards. We'd either flip two cards over or roll two dice.

[00:19:48] Betsy Mays: And if we were adding, whoever said the sum first, got to take a marshmallow and eat it. And those kind of fun games that We're practicing math skills, but we're laughing together and we're getting a little treat at the end or [00:20:00] during it. Those kind of make learning fun. 

[00:20:02] Dori Durbin: Yeah. Okay.

[00:20:03] Dori Durbin: Do you have a hack for money? Because I know a lot of kids really struggle with coins and trying to figure out how to count coins or add coins together. Have you come up with 

[00:20:14] Betsy Mays: anything? Oh, I don't know if I have a hack, but I agree with you with that stuff. That really is. Especially today, we're going to cards.

[00:20:21] Betsy Mays: We're going to playing with cards. cards, right? We pay with credit card or debit card. We don't transact in money. I know when I was young, I got an allowance in cash and I got to go up to the pharmacy or the candy store and buy treats for myself on the weekend. And I learned about money then.

[00:20:36] Betsy Mays: Unfortunately our kids aren't having that experience. So one way might. be to try to incorporate that into your home, right? Some kind of token economy system that's using real money. So kids have that experience. I know with one of my resource, I was helping a teacher at my school and one of the resource classrooms, we started that I play money.

[00:20:56] Betsy Mays: But it was, quarters, dimes, and the kids could earn money for [00:21:00] different things. And then the teacher had a little store and the kids could buy things. So we were trying to replicate that in the classroom. So kids were holding money and having to transact with it. 

[00:21:08] Dori Durbin: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, because if it's real world, they have a little more invested interest in it, too.

[00:21:14] Betsy Mays: Like Monopoly, use money, but not the change part, right? Those are just using bills, so it's not quite the same. 

[00:21:22] Dori Durbin: Maybe they'll come up with one of those, or maybe you could. I 

[00:21:25] Betsy Mays: could. I'll work on that. I'll write down that I have to come up with a money game. 

[00:21:29] Dori Durbin: I just know, I know adults who still struggle with the difference between nickels and...

[00:21:34] Dori Durbin: And dimes and quarters. 'cause they're all silver, and it's interesting. So like you said, we don't typically use them, but then you make 

[00:21:41] Betsy Mays: or making change, right? If you go have change count back, it's oh my goodness. 

[00:21:45] Dori Durbin: Yes. , yes. It's more tricky than what people think if you're not used 

[00:21:48] Betsy Mays: to that.

[00:21:49] Betsy Mays: And I worked at McDonald. McDonald's, I don't even wanna tell you how long ago, before the computer told us how much change to give, let's put it that way. So I had to learn how to count back money to people. But that was a while ago. . [00:22:00] 

[00:22:00] Dori Durbin: Yeah. Okay. So what do you feel is one mistake that parents might accidentally make when they're helping their kids try to appreciate math?

[00:22:10] Dori Durbin: Maybe their intentions are really good. And I know you mentioned the facial piece of that, but Right. Do they do anything else that sometimes will thwart their kids enjoying math or growing in it? 

[00:22:21] Betsy Mays: One thing, it's just, I don't know how many times I had parents say, I'm not good at math till your dad gets home.

[00:22:26] Betsy Mays: Or I. You know that or something like that, right? Or I'm not good at math. Wait till your mom gets home, whatever the case may be. Or so that would be a big thing. I'm trying to think if there's anything else and I guess, Oh, I don't know if I can come up with something right now. What's our next question?

[00:22:44] Betsy Mays: I'm thinking on that and we'll come back 

[00:22:45] Dori Durbin: to that. Yep, absolutely. So what's one thing that you wish kids knew about math earlier in life? 

[00:22:55] Betsy Mays: One, that it can be fun that it doesn't have to be drudgery, workbooks. It just [00:23:00] kills me when teachers, even the first week of school, want to do review and placement testing.

[00:23:05] Betsy Mays: I'm like, no, you should be doing something new the kids have never seen before. I used to give my kids graphing calculators and we did an M& M activity where we graphed the different colored M& Ms that were in the pack. But then we got to put the information into the graphing calculator and learn how to use that.

[00:23:20] Betsy Mays: So they were getting M& M's, but we covered our graphing standards, our standard analysis standards doing that, but it was fun and something they'd never done before. So try to think of ways to make it novel so that it's not the same. Paper and pencil. Not that they don't need to be able to use paper and pencil at some point, but it shouldn't be the first thing we go to.

[00:23:40] Betsy Mays: We should be using manipulatives, hands on stuff, or real life, whether we're in the garden and we have to plant our plants, three inches apart, or we are doing a craft project and we need a yard Yarn for each project and we're making 20 of them, how much yarn do we need, those kinds of things.

[00:23:59] Betsy Mays: [00:24:00] And then we have to be explicit and let kids know this is math. I know we just had fun, baking a cake for Nana, but we used a lot of math. Let's look at what math did we use, so not only doing those activities, knowing that we're giving our kids exposure to math, but then being explicit about it so they can make the connections.

[00:24:17] Dori Durbin: Yeah, this good stuff. I'm thinking about another project for you. Yes, I'm thinking that maybe you need to make a deck for parents of activities that they could be doing with their kids. Okay, 

[00:24:30] Betsy Mays: I'll look into that. I think there might be some stuff. I know there's some books and things out there already like that.

[00:24:38] Betsy Mays: But yeah, that's something to look into. 

[00:24:41] Dori Durbin: So that's just a freebie on the interview. So there you go. So where is the best place for them to find you and all of your materials? And even if if you're open to them emailing you with questions or anything like that. Oh, 

[00:24:56] Betsy Mays: definitely. Definitely. My website is gamesbyabsolutezero.[00:25:00] 

[00:25:00] Betsy Mays: com. There's, a contact me link on there. If you scroll to the bottom of the page, there's free resources. So in there I have Primeline, which is a print and play game with activities that helps with multiplication facts. There are a list of all my favorite games other than the ones I've created that my family and I like to play.

[00:25:22] Betsy Mays: There's math and art activities other things like that. So there's a bunch of free resources there. I have a blog called Raising Smart Kids. So in my blog post, I try to gear it towards both parents and teachers. So some posts might be more teacher centric and some posts might be more parent centric.

[00:25:37] Betsy Mays: But there's just good ideas in there on how to raise smart kids. Just all the things we need to keep in mind. And I sell everything though right now on Amazon. So if you're on my website and want to buy something, my shop now link takes you to my 

[00:25:49] Dori Durbin: Amazon store. Okay. And you said there was a contact form with your email on it.

[00:25:54] Dori Durbin: Do you want to just drop it anyway here? Yeah, so 

[00:25:56] Betsy Mays: just, it's Betsy, B E T S Y, at [00:26:00] GamesByAbsoluteZero. com. Perfect. Yep. You 

[00:26:03] Dori Durbin: have so much like fun, different, unique ideas that I feel like maybe just maybe some of us will have our minds changed about math. 

[00:26:13] Betsy Mays: I hope so. It's just playing any games, not even just my math games is so Enriching for families and for kids.

[00:26:23] Betsy Mays: We have a family. My kids are now grown and, left home, but we have sunday family dinner and we play games every sunday night still. We have three and we used to have four generations of our family playing games together around the kitchen table. It doesn't matter what the game is, whether it's a board game, your kids enjoy shoots and ladders, a card game, your family likes.

[00:26:41] Betsy Mays: It's just Fun. And they're learning so many social skills, verbal skills, and math skills playing the majority of games that are out there that you pretty much can't go wrong by playing games with some family. 

[00:26:54] Dori Durbin: I love that. I love that confidence that, that would inspire in kids too. 

[00:26:59] Betsy Mays: It really does. [00:27:00] And just how to be graceful winners and graceful losers.

[00:27:02] Betsy Mays: That's a big thing that we all need help on. I know, but just to teach them how to behave when things don't always go their way. 

[00:27:10] Dori Durbin: That's great. That is great. Betsy, thank you so much for your time today. I can't wait for people to try your games out and let you 

[00:27:17] Betsy Mays: know how they work. Thank you so much for having me, Dory.

[00:27:19] Betsy Mays: This was a lot of fun. 

[00:27:20] Dori Durbin: Oh, thank you.