Free Lessons
Learn How to Use the Abacus
Four short lessons from our coaches, in the order we teach them. Free, no sign-up needed.
The abacus is an ancient calculating tool that dates back centuries. Early societies used some form of Abacus to count and do arithmetic long before they invented numbers. Mostly, they calculated problems by moving stones or beans around in grooves or on tablets. You can still see the abacus being used in parts of Asia and Africa by merchants and traders who work with the swiftness of lightning. Your child will become just as skillful.
At Genie Academy, we use the abacus because it is an invaluable tool to help children understand mathematics. Little children have difficulty grasping arithmetic because it is not something they can see or touch. By working with beads on the abacus, math becomes something your child can understand.
The Four Lessons
Watch them in order — each one builds on the last. About ten minutes end to end.
- 1.
Counting on the abacus from 1 to 4
Start here. How the beads are arranged, and how your child forms the numbers one through four — the movement everything else is built on.
1:46
- 2.
Counting on the abacus from 5 to 9
The upper bead enters, and with it the idea that one bead can stand for five. This is the first genuinely abstract step, and the one worth watching twice.
3:20
- 3.
Learn Simple Additions and Subtractions on the Abacus
Putting the counting to work: adding and taking away on the beads, so arithmetic becomes something your child can see and move rather than memorise.
4:01
- 4.
Introduction to Mental Math using the Abacus
Where it is heading. Once the beads are familiar, children picture them — and start calculating without an abacus in front of them at all.
1:41
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