Definition: An Abacus is a counting tool used in mathematics for early learners. The Abacus helps provide a concrete understanding of counting, adding, subtracting and dividing. The Abacus contains beads or disks that can be moved up or down or from side to side. The Abacus doesn't do the calcuation, it allows learners to manipulate the beads or disks to see the calculation. It's believed that the Abacus was used by the early Aztecs in 300 BC.
Although often considered a toy, I find the Abacus to be an extremely useful learning tool for young learners and can be effective from about 2 years of ages through to about 7 years.
Examples:
An Abacus can be used to find the many combinations of 10: 3 + 7, 5 + 5, 8 + 2 etc.
