History

Abacus is actually a Latin word with origins in the Greek words ‘abax’ meaning “table”. The abacus, also called a counting frame. We can’t imagine counting without numbers, but there was a time when no written numbers.  The earliest counting device was the human hand and its fingers, capable of counting uplevices came into existence and abacus was one such device. This simple calculating device helped to count large numbers and use of both parts of brain, thus helping a child from converting from intelligent to genius.

An abacus consists of a wooden frame, rods, and beads. On the top layer there is one rounded beads and on the bottom there is four beads. There were thirteen wooden poles which were very small and held the beads in place. On the abacus you could add, subtract, multiply, and divide. Each rod represents a different place value—ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, and so on. Each bead represents a number, usually 1 or 5, and can be moved along the rods. Addition and subtraction can easily be performed by moving beads along the wires of the abacus. Often they were simply boards or tables on which pebbles or stones could be moved to show addition or subtraction. The earliest counting tables or boards may simply have been lines drawn in the sand. These evolved into actual tables with grooves in them to move the counters.