Congratulations Ella! and Aangeles! How exciting! :yes:
I waiting to receive a program I ordered to use with my girls at home, and until then they are practicing counting to 100 on a 3-rod abacus. And your story is inspiring to me since I also am learning with them.
Please keep us updated. 
Congratulations to both of you, aangeles!
I can imagine how great that feels!
Well Done!
Iām far far from an expert but have some thoughts or hunches on this.
There are perhaps people that use classic abacus for mental math vs soroban, but from what I can gather, the anzan or mental math kids/adults that Iāve seen all over the internet have always used the soroban.
Really the only difference is the beads. If Iām not mistaken, the classic abacus has two heavenly beads and 5 earthly beadsā¦ well, thatās 15 just in the ones column alone. I might be wrong about this, and some of the newer abacus have either 2 heavenly or 5 earthlyā¦ meaning you can have 10 in the ones column.
Well, the soroban uses place value exceptionally well. There can only be 9 in the ones column (or any of the columns). If you go over 9, then youāre going to have use the tens column (the next column up).
And this is how we write the numbersā¦ 9 is single digit, 10 is two digit. 100 is three digit. The soroban mimics this perfectly.
Because it mimics so perfectly, it gives you an excellent mental representation of the number itselfā¦ and so when you do the calculation you just look to the hundreds column, the tens column, and the ones column to see how many beads are in each column effectively giving you the number. If you had 10 in the ones column, it might get confusing (IMO)
I also like having heavenly and earthly beads; My wife bought a melissa and doug abacus that has just 10 beads on each rod. I plan on using this for early counting, but I think it would suck for calculating. The heavenly bead makes a 5 chunk that allows for quicker manipulationā¦ you donāt have to grab say 6 beads and slide themā¦ with heavenly beads you just push the 5 chunk up and remove an earthly beadā¦ just easier to see, but perhaps harder to understand AT FIRST.
This is one reason why I like Singapore math. They really emphasize number bonds (what equals 5, and what equals 10)ā¦ it seems like a good set up for soroban use (from my limited look at their early text)
Oh, and the sliding horizontally vs verticallyā¦ again it mimics how we write the number. 1,000 is written left to right. Imagine thinking of the number like this:
1
0
0
0
This is a little more difficult to get with a mental snap shot. Additionally, the horizontal sliding abacus that Iāve seen require or use a very long rod (which is excellent for counting and really SEEING how the counts relate to each other) - longer rod means larger movements which will also mean slower calculation because the moves take longer to execute. Having said that, it takes some fine motor skills to use a sorobanā¦ the beads are small and the moves are small and distinguishedā¦ I donāt think any little kid can just start working with one; they have to develop the ability (or have a soroban geared for small fingersā¦ like large crayons)
PokerDad, you would be interested to know that there IS a special abacus with large beads made for younger kids called a Pacchi abacus: http://www.kidenergy.com/27-pacchi.html
I got one when Ella was 2.5, but frankly did not get much use out of it beyond showing her the numbers 1-4 on it. The reason being, at that time, I didnāt know if she was cognitively ready to understand that a heavenly bead, even though it is just 1 bead, represents 5 units. She may have been ready, but I wasnāt SURE. :laugh: So instead, I started by using Play-Doh - giving her 5 small lumps then combining them to make 1 big lump and putting it on top - and subsequently changing to marbles and stones (like the one in the video you also discovered). By the time we were done with these exercises, she was ready for a regular beginnerās abacus. I am sure you donāt have to do these preliminary activities when starting with 4 or 5 year olds as they can probably understand the concept of a single heavenly bead representing 5, but I felt I had to do them since I started Ella so young. Oh, and one other thing, I would probably wait until the child can count with one-to-one correspondence reliably before starting on the playdoh activity.
PokerDad & Aangeles:
We just received the same 3-rod abacus:
http://www.kidenergy.com/27-pacchi.html
and the 5-rod abacus:
http://www.kidenergy.com/27-us100.html
and I ordered for the fun of it the āChineseā abacus with two beads on top:
Thank the both of you for showing me the pacchiā¦ Iāve seen them on demonstrations, but didnāt know how to find them and didnāt know what they were called. Do either of you know how to find those really big ones they use for classrooms? (just curious)
Certainly. And yes, the same website sells them in two sizes:
http://www.kidenergy.com/27-teach5.html
http://www.kidenergy.com/27-teach11.html
and a few other abaci:
Itās called a teacherās abacus:
http://www.kidenergy.com/27-teach11.html
http://www.kidenergy.com/27-teach5.html
You can get them much cheaper from companies in India and SE Asia, but they donāt ship to the US.
Thank you! Thatās a great site
You can get them much cheaper from companies in India and SE Asia, but they don't ship to the USAh, bummer!!! Maybe when the time is right, I'll have to find someone that's willing to buy and then ship me one on the cheap.
Could you please tell me what is the size of the beads on the small pacchi abacus? Many thanks
Sure. The small pacchi beads are 3/4" wide x 7/16" tall.
And I am so excited because we just received our curriculum from:
The illustrations are nice and make it simple enough, even for me to learn, in order to teach the girls.
thank you Ayesha, but I am sorry I donāt know how to convert it to cm 
Hmm. I donāt either, so I used an online calculator to convert from inches to centimeters:
3/4" wide x 7/16" tall.
.75 inches wide = 1.9 cm wide X .5 inches tall (actually, the bead is slightly shorter) = 1.3 cm tall (or slightly shorter).
I hope that helps.
Kudos to Ella! You are truly inspiring, Aangeles.
You can type in a specific measurement into Google (for example, 2.5 inches) and then type āin centimetersāā¦ and actually my google will already have that pop up in the search as soon as I type in the inchesā¦ but Google can auto convert any measurement for you in their normal search
congradulation to you both Ella and Aangels! Ella youāre an intelligent girl
I canāt wait to start abacus math with my LO. now sheās 15 months old.
Ella87, can you share about how to introduce abacus to your LO at 15 months old? Thank you!!
I am little bit confused about the fruitfulness of the abacus method,but in India from my childhood my mother usually teaches by this method ,it was not developed to this extent.
but we generally use marbles,stick yards ,and counting slate where abacus is fixed.It was really amazing.
I used this to teach my younger children in a tribal school,i get the responses and love from them for that tricks only.
Right now my Lil is counting and started writing numbers.
But i am not satisfied that much in compare to reading explaining , singing and drawing.
thanks for sharing.
It is really very inspiring.
Congratsā¦Ella and you really very hard working
Hi guys,
Congratulations on your progress with Anzan.
Iām glad to see her education is coming along nicely!
I just wanted to give you a jolt of inspiration: Iāve finally uploaded some of the videoās from my recent trip to Japan.
I think youāll really enjoy the one of a 3 yr old doing multiplication.
check it out here http://www.learnsoroban.com/2012/01/25/amazing/3-years-old/
See you around.
Tom
I am really fascinated by vedic mathematics but I realize I need a bridge for my 2 and 3 year old to get there. Is teaching the abacus a good bridge towards vedics mathematics or is learning the abacus sufficient enough. thanks to anyone who can help.