What is Mental Math and Abacus
Japanese Abacus, called ‘Soroban’ is used as a tool for learning Mental Math at UCMAS.
What is an Abacus?
- The word is derived from the Greek word ‘abax’, meaning "calculating board" or "calculating table”.
- The first Chinese Abacus was invented around 500 B.C. The Abacus, as we know it today, was used in China around 1300 A.D.
- Often referred to as the first computer, the Abacus is an instrument used to add, subtract, multiply and divide, to calculate fractions and square roots.
- It is still commonly used today across certain Asian communities.
The Abacus provides countable beads for children to visualize numbers on a base-10 system. The children learn to manipulate those beads to perform arithmetic calculations such as addition and division.
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What is Mental Math?
Mental math is the essential building block that replaces the physical Abacus in the child’s mind. As the children gradually learn to visualise the Abacus in their mind (virtual Abacus), they learn to calculate mathematical problems using the principles of the Abacus, without the use of the physical tool.