Recommendations for good Abacus program

[TracyR4]

Would love some recommendations. Of course being from the US I never used this at all. So I will have to learn along side my daughters. I was really impressed after seeing a video from another thread that I've got to try it with my girls. Maybe it would help my mathphobic 11 yr old to feel more confident about math.

[momtobaby]

http://www.ucmas.com/prog_abacus.htm

Have a browse through this website Tracy.....they mainly concentrate on training children to do mental mathematics.

[TracyR4]

Thanks for sharing the link. To bad they didn't have a center near us in the US.
Would anyone know of a program we can use at home or is online?

[momtobaby]

Ohh that' sad...well I  did come across this great website where there are lots of free lesson downloads on how to teach ur child abacus ...
http://www.nurtureminds.com/download.htm

u can star ur little on this and I will keep an eye out for some good mental math prog for ur child....if I find something interesting I will let u know immediately

[TracyR4]

Thanks a bunch  for that link.  It is sad. Abacus is not something that is used by many people here in the US. That's why American students don't do well in math. Our country likes to reinvent the wheel when it comes to education, and its not always for the better

[momtobaby]

http://www.iqabacus.com/

This organization is based in US if I am not mistaken....pls have a look Tracy...hofefully its useful.

[heath]

http://aloha-usa.com/

I heard great reviews about Aloha. They have lot of centers. I think it's 2 hours class one day a week. You get homework for the rest of the week.

[TracyR4]

Yes, I saw Aloha. Oh how I wish they were in our area. They are clear across our state. Sigh. Maybe someday they'll open a franchise on this side of the state.

[heath]

May be you should open one.

[lzp11]

Has anyone used this program?  http://www.mathabacus.com/index.html

The books look very interesting (although a bit too advanced for my DD who is almost 2).  Any feedback would be great!

[Mum]

Hello lzp11,

I started using the Learning Mathematics with the Abacus Year 1 books with my daughter when she was 5. I purchased 2 abacuses and we are having fun learning how to use them together. I would not recommend this style of abacus for very young children as handling the abacus was frustrating at first for my daughter. I think five was a great age to start.

The actual math problems are very simple for my daughter, so I keep each lesson very brief (5 minutes) to ensure we always have fun. We are using it to boost my daughter's powers of visualisation, which we have worked on for some time now with the more basic style of abacus from RightStart Mathematics.

For younger children I love the RightStart program which I started using when my daughter was 4 years old. It is full of variety and many fun activities suitable for youngsters such as singing and playing with our bear counters, pom-poms, straws, animal toys and home-made play money.

I started my 3½ year old son on the RightStart abacus this week and was very happy with the interest he showed and how he could handled it.

I feel very fortunate to have found these abacus based programs. We love our abacuses. 

Happy teaching,

Mum.

[lzp11]

Hi Mum

Thanks so much for your helpful reply.  I had a look at the RightStart program and it looks GREAT!!  It is still a little way off for us but I actually really enjoy planning ahead and thinking what our learning methods will be over the next 12 months or so.  I definitely think we will give this a try.  I have been looking for more physical methods of teaching maths and this looks like a very accessible and straightforward start to the abacus, which will suit us both (as I know nothing about the abacus either).  I am very convinced!!

I was really struck reading the background information about how the Japanese teaching methods put far less emphasis on counting.  It mentioned that when you ask a Western child to add 9 and 4 that they will often start to count from 9 upwards.  I noticed that is exactly what I was doing in my own mind!!  Whereas a Japanese child would use a mental abacus to group the numbers into 5s and 10s to make it easier (add a 1 to the 9 and deduct a 1 from the four so that you have 10 plus 3 which is much easier to calculate without needing to count).

This also makes me feel more relaxed about needing to worry so much about constantly working on counting.  Of course it is important, but maybe we focus on this too much in the West in some ways.

Thanks again - I'm really sold by this idea and looking forward to starting working with it when the right time comes 

[ariel]

Hi,

The RightStart program books are so much more expensive than the Learning With Mathematics.  They both use different types of Abacus.  The Learning with Math uses the  Japanese abacus but "Mum" would it be difficult for a  2 year old.  Would a  French Abacus with the RightStart program be better?   I would actually prefer to start on the
Japanese abacus but then I don't want to confused my DD too.

My other question, "Mum" it seems you have tried the books for both.  Can you recommend which books would be nice for a 2 year old?  Apart from the types of abacuses because I can always buy the abacus from Ebay/Amazon. 

Thanks  soo much for all the input,

[Mum]

lzp11, You are very welcome.

ariel, I agree that the RightStart Mathematics program is expensive. You should try getting it shipped to Australia!    I must say that it has been worth the cost. We started at Level B and I am planning to order Level C during the next couple of months and start working on it with my daughter in the second half of this year.

Also, I have probably saved a fortune since we started RightStart as I am no longer tempted by other math activity books or manipulatives (which can quickly add up) because I know that my daughter is getting a lot of benefit from using RightStart and she truly understands and enjoys our lessons. And there is very little preparation for me before a lesson – the occasional photocopying of a game sheet, once I made some Australian coins out of cardboard and modified a few related lesson plans, gathering toys or the supplied cards for games. Generally I just grab the items in the supplies list at the top of the lesson plan and then sit right down with my daughter without having read through the lesson.    I love it!

The RightStart abacus is specifically designed for the program so you probably wouldn’t be able to just purchase it alone and get the same benefits. I think a child would need to understand 1s, 10s, 100s and so on (which are so clear on the style of abacus like the one used in RightStart which I wrongly thought of as very babyish before seeing how powerful the two-coloured RightStart abacus is), then be introduced to the Japanese abacus.

The student does not use the RightStart Mathematics book, the teacher does. The student does very little writing which is one reason I am using it for my son at 3 years of age. He is a brilliant reader and has had an introduction to math thanks to LM and Doman, but is not a strong writer.

The student sings, plays finger games, plays with toys, plays with the abacus, plays with counters, plays card games, plays board games, plays with shapes….. Plays, plays, plays rather than completes worksheets. There are worksheets, but only a few, and I’m going to incorporate stickers into those lessons so my son will have a blast doing them. When my daughter was 4 and 5 I made up equation questions about fairies, princesses and unicorns with lots of coloured pictures thrown in to make the worksheets more fun.

The student does use books with the Learning Mathematics with the Abacus program, but you can control how much by doing all of the exercises along with them on your own abacus. The books definitely wouldn’t appeal to a 2 year old. The Activity Book is a very plain black and white book and the Text Book is only slightly more appealing. I’m probably not going to introduce the Japanese abacus to my son before he is 5, even though he wants to have his turn now. Also, it is not very strong so I’m afraid he’ll break it. 

The Learning Mathematics with the Abacus does teach math while learning to use the Japanese abacus, but I would not use this program alone to teach a child math. As much as we like learning our Japanese abacus with this program, I am convinced that my daughter would not have the same excellent grasp of math if I had started her math journey with this program. RightStart is far more comprehensive.

I hope that this helps.

Mum.

[ariel]

Thanks so much "Mum".  I definately see your point how RightStart is more comprehensive.  Few more questions, so the manipulatives you only buy once and even as you reach different levels?   Will you likely finish all the levels with your children?   I was thinking of maybe putting the manipulatives together on my own, maybe go to a Dollar Store and if I don't find something, I could always purchase it.  They do sell the abacus separately for 10 bucks and even sell individual manipulates separately.  

For your older daughter, you are doing Learning with Math with the Japanese abacus side by side?  Do you plan to finish all the levels with this also but later?

Thanks, 

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