Chinese abacus

Having something tangible to help with counting is always useful. We've had a small counting frame for many years, which has been well used. Now we're integrating maths into our study of China and looking at the origin of the abacus and it's system.

The abacus is a Chinese invention, with first mention of it being from the Yuan Dynasty (14th century). We get the name abacus from the Greek word 'abax' meaning calculating board.

I have used a Chinese abacus before whilst at uni, but it has been quite a few years ago. So, I need a refresher and will by no means be able to work the complicated long multiplications or such.

So, to start, here's a bit of background on how the abacus works.  To use the abacus, first set it at '0'.  That is, push all the beads away from the central beam.   You work from left to right, which seems odd, but the 'numbers' are still set up with either the decimals or units to the far right.; Each bead on the lower section represents '1'.  Each bead on the upper section represents '5'.  Therefore, to illustrate the number '6', you'd move one upper bead down toward the beam and one lower bead up toward the beam. This abacus guide book is an excellent resource on use for addition, subtraction and multiplication. Another excellent tutorial page of interest is here, from the abacus committee.

For a video, this is well worth seeing:



The Chinese abacus is based on the hexidecimal system (base 16), whilst the Japanese is base 10.

If you want to see how impressively quick students can use the abacus, this is quite inspiring. Maestro was amazed at how quickly these students worked:



I thought it of interest that using the abacus is meant to support use of the right side of the brain and help with memory, as mentioned by the abacus committee.

So, now the question put to me is can we get one of these?
Well, perhaps we can make our own first. A clever person has made one with popsicle sticks. Or, practice on a virtual abacus online. More teacher resource ideas can be seen here.

However, if both my children decide they want to master the use of this method of calculating, I'd better look for an Aussie supplier. :)