abacus

[bearfinch]

I bought an little Chineese-type abacus last sunday

Comments

[tim_e_bear]

Interestingly, I think we had abaci (pl?) in the classroom in kindergarten or grade 1. I have a distinct memory of it...I always found it kind of funny that we had those but didn't, oh, have any left-handed shoe models to teach how to tie shoes on, or any left-handed scissors that worked (to this day, I use right-hand scissors in my left-hand, because those scissors with the green tape ALWAYS, in EVERY classroom, were wonky and did not work) (I liked the abacus, as I recall, though).

[bearfinch]

I remember us having little counting things (like beads or sets of counters on pegs) but they weren't much more help than counting on your fingers.

What I like about the abacus is that it is a visual representation of the decimal number system and as you add or subtract the numbers in the column change the same way.

[tim_e_bear]

The ones I remember were fairly large, so I think they were abacuses (again, this is a memory that goes back a long way (in fact, before you were born *another gray hair materializes*), so I could be wrong and they may have been little counting things...).

[use2bshy]

Have fun playing with your balls :)

[bearfinch]

I can only count to two with those.... :p