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My 5yr old wasn't too much into his math school work until I got him this abacus. Now he loves using it every day. He was so excited when we got it. Great product for homeschooled kids.
It still looks like it did when we got it.I wish the wood-colored (I know they are not actually colored, but that's the problem) beads were white, at least - it's kind of frustrating when you want to review colors with a young child. This is a very sturdy toy. My kids are really hard on toys and we've had this for a year. And it would be nice if there were a few more colors, though I am glad they stick with distinctive, primary colors - with the exception of those "wood-colored" beads. :p
I took the toy away and was able to confirm that with a little prying on the wood, the metal bars would lose alignment and be able to release all the little balls (which at least have a hole in them, but, still.).I drilled a hole slightly smaller than the threads of a drywall screw down the center of the dowel, and one slightly larger than the threads - just slightly smaller than the head of the screw - in a matching location on the outer (left and right) two wooden pieces. I've owned this for a year and my son has gone from just watching me move it around as a newborn, to rolling the balls, to sliding them back and forth. By doing this, I was able to tightly fasten the dowel with a screw at either end without having any of the head of the screw stick out of the wood. Its great because it makes sounds, its large and colorful, and moves.The choking hazard warning comes from the fact that the wooden pieces used to hold the thing together are inadequately glued. Today, my 18 month old son finally succeeded in getting the top wooden dowel to rotate. Now, the dowel cannot rotate at all because of the additional friction on its ends imposed by the screw.I will be monitoring the base of the unit to make sure that the wood does not separate here either, but if it does, a similar solution should remedy the problem.I give this toy a 5 in everything except durability, where it gets a mere 1. It's too bad America's "disposable culture" doesn't allow for the concept of repairability - it was easy to fix with tools everyone should have in their home or apartment.
This abacus should be used for school age children starting kindergarten, not before. Considering it took humans millions of years to start having words for numbers there should be great appreciation for how abstract a number system is. And it is to be used for learning to count, and not for the sound the beads make when you shake it.My daughter just finished her kindergarten and getting ready for First Grade. While she can read, she had been struggling with additions until she began counting the beads on this abacus. Already she's finding shortcuts in the abacus to speed up her calculations by matching sets of beads in different rows and looking at problems from different perspectives as Archimedes once did (see The Archimedes Codex: How a Medieval Prayer Book Is Revealing the True Genius of Antiquity's Greatest Scientist). It is only through reasonable practice that the beads of the abacus will shape the beads of her mind.
We bought this for our 3 year old, so that he can develop his counting skills - so far he has not shown much interest in using it for counting. But it seems like a sturdy and colorful abacus and we are hoping he'll soon develop interest in using it.
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