Abacus (specifically Japanese, but maybe Chinese)

[NayfiesMama]

I'm specifically interested in the Japanese Abacus, although may be persuaded to use the Chinese if it's easier. There's a school in Portland, OR that teaches with the Japanese Abacus, but unfortunately we're too far away, and we have no spare money right now.

Does anyone teach using an abacus to their children? Also, has anyone advanced enough that they can use "an imaginary" abacus for doing problems?

Thanks!

[dcjlkplus3]

There are different kinds of abucuses? Seriously, I did no tknow that. We bought a Melissa and Doug abacus last year that we use all the time for math. Manipulatives that can't be lost or made into a mess, already in groups of 10 - you bet! My dd7 uses it for math all the time, but I don't know if it is Chinese or Japanese.:tongue_smilie:

[KAR120C]

My dad made DS a tiny little soroban (abacus) when he was about 2 or 3 years old, and while it was used as a race car (rolling on the beads... LOL) for a while there, we did get around to learning to add and subtract with it.

What really came in handy though was a soroban I made with mat board and pipe cleaners.... five rods, so we could count up to the hundreds with two digits left for cents. We took it to the grocery store with us routinely for years, and DS's job was to keep track of the bill as we went. That was excellent practice and really improved his fluency.

I can't use an "imaginary" abacus (in my head), but I do use count on my fingers abacus-style. If you look for a book called Fingermath it explains the general idea. Very simple, actually... but I've found it tremendously useful.

There's a website somewhere that gives a really good basic tutorial on arithmetic with a soroban... I don't have it in my bookmarks anymore, but you could google it. And I think the mat-board-and-pipe-cleaner instructions might be online somewhere too. Also IIRC, there's a Singapore curriculum distributor (not the regular singaporemath.com) called sgbox.com, that has 2nd and 3rd grade abacus workbooks. I think those use a soroban too.

Hope this helps!

[KAR120C]

There are different kinds of abucuses? Seriously, I did no tknow that. We bought a Melissa and Doug abacus last year that we use all the time for math. Manipulatives that can't be lost or made into a mess, already in groups of 10 - you bet! My dd7 uses it for math all the time, but I don't know if it is Chinese or Japanese.:tongue_smilie:
The Melissa and Doug type of abacus (with ten beads per rod) is more like the Russian abacus ("schoti"). Chinese and Japanese abacuses, and many other types, have beads of different values on the same rod, usually with a "reckoning bar" to distinguish between them... but there might be 5, 6 or 7 beads per rod instead of ten.

It's one of my geeky little hobbies. ;)

[siloam]

I'm specifically interested in the Japanese Abacus, although may be persuaded to use the Chinese if it's easier. There's a school in Portland, OR that teaches with the Japanese Abacus, but unfortunately we're too far away, and we have no spare money right now.

Does anyone teach using an abacus to their children? Also, has anyone advanced enough that they can use "an imaginary" abacus for doing problems?

Thanks!

I use the Right Start abacus. I don't know how it compares to either a Japanese or Chinese abacus. My kids are pretty good at mental math, but I don't know if they are picturing abacus images or not. Well I can guess my oldest isn't because she doesn't care for the abacus, but the other 3 might.

I do think there is value in teaching an abacus. It shows place value pretty well, and is kinesthetic. My kids are very right brained and the hands on really helps them.

Heather

[magistramom]

We did Sorban for two years. It was enough for my 1st and 3rd grader at the time, to use an imaginary abacus with their math work. I would consider putting them back in during the Jr. High years to help them "get" higher math down. It is faster than a caluculator - I'm a testimony to that!

[yslek]

We also use the RightStart abacus. It has two sides. On side 1, the beads alternate color every 5 beads, making it really easy to "see" numbers up to 100. On side 2, the abacus is to be used horizontally, with two bars for units, two bars for 10s, two bars for 100s and 2 bars for 1000s. Ds8 used this last year to add four-digit numbers with ease. He can visually some things on this abacus, too.

I am not at all familiar with the Chinese or Japanese abacus. I used a regular 10-bar, 10 all-one-color beads per bar abacus in elementary school in Germany, but IMO the RS abacus it much better. :)

Kelsy

[Ester]

http://www.jimloy.com/arith/abacus.gif

[Nan in Mass]

I count on my fingers abacus-style, too. It is really handy for when you have to talk about something and add something at the same time, like taking a pole of how many people will eat how many ears of corn. I do it by using my right hand fingers for ones, right hand thumb for five, left hand fingers for tens, and left hand thumb for fifty. I can count up to 99 this way and I just remember the hundreds, if I need them. I taught my children to use an abacus that I got from Chinatown, too. Mine never had any problem with the concept of carrying or borrowing. After a bit, we stopped, but I've always sort of regretted it. Why didn't we keep using it?
-Nan

[KAR120C]

I count on my fingers abacus-style, too. It is really handy for when you have to talk about something and add something at the same time

The other thing I use it for is remembering where I was in a long mental calculation -- like having a little note so I don't lose track of anything.

[NayfiesMama]

Thanks for all the hints so far! I think the school is called "Jams" in Portland; I wish that I could just take the kids to learn it:-) If anyone in Salem wants to teach a small class, I'd love you to pm me:-)
Carrie:-)

[TXMomof2]

I've used the resources from www.nurtureminds.com (http://www.nurtureminds.com). The resources are easy to use. I don't currently use it because we use RightStart and I don't want to confuse my ds.