Student-Made Abacus for Hands-On Math Instruction

Want to make your math lessons more interesting, understandable, practical and hands-on? You can do this very simply, quickly and inexpensively with these student made abacuses ( an early calculator developed by the Chinese). Students can assemble them, keep them easily in their desks and have them handy for all sorts of math lesson, instruction or practice. The abacus is small portable, sturdy and useful. You can use it to introduce, explain, demonstrate and check student comprehension for all kinds of concepts:

counting
place value
number lines
addition with carrying/ regrouping
subtraction with borrowing/ regrouping
100 Day
decimals
integers
base ten math
multiplication tables
division facts
and more you may think of yourself!

Have I whetted your curiosity? Here's how to make the abacus:

Materials:

recycled cereal boxes (one wide side per student)
ten 25" (at least) pieces of heavy string, yarn, shoelaces, etc.
pony beads in 10 colors (10 of each color per student)
scissors

Procedure:

Cut cereal box so each student has one wide side.
Measure 10 lines of equal distance apart across the width (narrow edges) of the cardboard on the plain side, dividing the box into 11 even long rectangles.
Cut slits on both sides of each line about one and 1/2 into box.
Put one end of yarn or string through each slit.
Tie a knot to secure.
String a set of 10 beads on each string; one color per string. (one of each color in a pattern if using abacus as a 100's chart or for x or division facts)*
Pull the string through the slit at the other end.
Pull string and beads taut.
Tie ends of string together where they meet on back side of cardboard.
There will be room to move the beads up and down on the front of the abacus.

Use:

Depending upon your grade and math level, label each slit like this

Place values: Begin with ones on the left, tens, 100's, 1000's, 10,000's, 100,000's, 1.000,000's, 10,000,000's, 100,000,000 and billion
Regrouping
Carrying
Borrowing