Children abacus

Genesis of the abacus

The abacus was an important tool in the ancient world. It served as a manual calculator for merchants. As written numbers had not yet been invented, the abacus was the solution. It allowed people to add and subtract large numbers that they couldn’t do in their heads. Not only could the abacus do addition and subtraction, it could also do multiplication, division, square roots and fractions. It enabled the Roman Empire to develop astronomy and engineering, and to better calculate and collect taxes. Architecture improved thanks to the abacus’ capacity, as designers were able to calculate more precise measurements.

The abacus in the modern world

Throughout the world, abacuses have been used in nursery and elementary schools as an aid to teaching the numbering system and arithmetic.

The wooden abacus consists of a beaded frame similar to the Russian abacus, but with straight wires and a vertical frame. It’s still often considered a toy, but its usefulness goes much further:

A more modern use of the abacus is to help children with mental arithmetic. When children use the abacus, they begin to be able to picture an abacus in their minds. This improves children’s mental arithmetic skills. Children believe that the abacus is a toy and that, therefore, when they play with it, they improve their mathematical skills. This promotes mathematics as a fun thing for children to do.

It’s no coincidence that the abacus has become a key element in the learning of mathematics in many educational methods, including Montessori.

Why abacus learning is essential

Learning to use abacus brings important benefits to children in terms of improving learning skills, photographic memory, visualization skills, increasing speed, concentration, precision and fluency in mathematics.

The abacus, even 2000 years old, remains a popular learning tool, even in the digital age.

How does the abacus help improve cognitive skills?

When using an abacus, you need to coordinate the different senses of the body: sight and hand coordination.

The mind performs physical and logical actions at the same time. This stimulates brain development from an early age and, more importantly, helps to eliminate children’s fear of math.

Key benefits of abacus learning

With the abacus, calculation skills are reinforced and students can perform calculations more quickly and accurately.

• The abacus promotes a stress-free, confidence-building way of learning mathematical concepts.
• It enhances problem-solving skills
• Learning to use the abacus not only focuses on getting the right answer, but also helps with logical reasoning.
• Using the abacus improves children’s concentration: it demands all their concentration!
• The abacus enhances mental skills such as visualization and memory.