Learning Resources 2-Color Desktop Abacus, Red Frame, Color Coded, Math Concepts, Ages 5+

This abacus is inexpensive and very functional. If a small child breaks it you can easily replace it. As a first grader my teacher taught me to use an abacus; this gives a child a significant advantage in grasping the concepts of basic math. You have columns for ones, tens, hundreds and thousands. My three year old daughter now understands that when she gets ten beads of ones that is the same as 1 bead in the hundreds columns and she can count one to a hundred and compare to her wall chart.This is a great learning tool; a child can use their minds and their hands at the same time. The abacus holds their interest.This is a great, inexpensive way to start a child learning math without boring them into inattentiveness. The image doesn't really show it but if you slide all the beads on one wire there is adequate space between the beads on the adjacent wires (which is necessary to really use it). Beads alternate colors at intervals of 5 which facilitates exercises such as counting by fives.We use this abacus to play an educational game with our daughter. We set up a little market in our home and she keeps up with what she has sold using the abacus. I fully expect that she will be able to calculate her gross sales in a few months.I first purchased her the Melissa and Doug abacus which is a cute toy with sliding beads but it isn't functional. As pointed out by a reviewer of that toy it lacks several integral design concepts, i.e. the beads from one wire to another will overlap the adjacent rows when you slide them all over and the beads on the wires are not different colors at 5 bead intervals. In short you can't really use that one.This abacus is actually functional and is a great way to introduce a child to basic math. Recommended.

As soon as I opened the package, there was already children waiting to get their hands on this abacus. We homeschool and this is our favorite abacus to work with because we can do so much with it. My daughter in 5th grade still uses it for multiplication and long additions and subtractions. The manual that comes with it shows you exactly how to use the abacus and the different equations you can solve with it. Using an abacus gives children and adults a great understanding of math.

I bought this abacus for my first grade son to work on learning addition and subtraction facts. I can see that it will also be helpful later on for learning other concepts, such as place value. The two-color model is brilliant, because it helps the user to identify a number at a glance, instead of counting. I saw that another reviewer found the wires to be "flimsy". I find, on the contrary, that this model works very well. I was expecting each wire to be separate and rigid. Instead, they are all connected, and the wire is more like a soft cord. The result is that it can't get kinks or bends in it, and it looks like it will be more difficult to break. The beads are easy to move along the wire. As other reviewers noted, it is intended to lay flat on a table, not to stand up on its own. It would have been nice if it had come with instructions, but I have been able to find the info I need online. I bought a used version, so maybe that is why there are no instructions.

We homeschool and my kid hates using math manipulatives. Had to force her to do math. Someone suggested an abacus, so I got one to try. The next morning I woke up to my husband giving her math equations and her happily clacking away on it! It was a sanity saver for me and she loves math now.

I was skeptical about this product, only because I remember my grandfather using a Chinese Abacus, and some of my friends that used similar abacus when they were young and are now essentially being human calculators. My child struggles with math, which common core isn't really helping out (that's a separate conversation). So using something that worked in the past for so many, and what my human calculator friends have been trained to use when they were young, getting an abacus just made sense. So, even with my skepticism of using this abacus, I can say that the concepts are very much the same, and that my son is doing better in math. He's not quite at the human calculator status, but he's only in the 2nd grade. All in all, I recommend this product if your child is having a little bit of a struggle with math, as the will be able to visually see and understand how numbers work.

This is a great abacus! I purchased this to help in our homeschooling math lessons and the kids love it!Here's what I liked:- The size - It fits perfectly on top of their school books and doesn't take up a ton of extra space.- The groups of 5 beads - This is a good visual reminder that numbers can easily be split by 5s. (8 is 5+3)- Sturdy frame - The red frame is not only easy to find but it is thick and very sturdy.- Metal slides - Metal surpasses wood on nearly every level. The beads slide easily and we don't have to worry about breaking or getting splinters.- Place value guides - These guides make it easy to visually show how place values work.I would recommend this abacus for any child who prefers hand's on learning (Kinesthetic Learners) or even Visual Learners.