What is abacus math? Abacus is a method used to improve mathematical skills in kids in an intelligent and playful way. It is considered to be the fastest way of learning math thereby helping improve the problem-solving ability in kids. It’s an ancient multi-sensory calculating tool, that helps kids understand math in an easy and interesting manner. Abacus is a Chinese calculator also called “Suanpan” and has been used for more than 2,000 years back. It consists of a wooden frame divided by a horizontal bar into upper and lower sections. The vertical wires consist of beads from top to bottom. The part of the wire is referred to as heaven or upper deck, and the area below the bar is referred to as “Earth” or lower deck. In this tool, the lower bead has a value of one and the upper bead has a value of 5. The abacus method is used to perform math problems like addition, subtraction, multiplication, and even extraction of square-roots and cubic roots. Why is Abacus called mental maths? In the abacus, the kids are asked to mentally visualize an abacus to carry out mathematical calculations. In the abacus method, the kids mentally move the beads to do the math and gain the ability to calculate extraordinarily large numbers at an expert level with tremendous speed and accuracy. Not only that they are also prepared to solve problems outside of arithmetic. With the abacus method, the kids do not have to memorize as they learn the skills of visualizing the problems, which fosters the child’s imagination.