The Linear Abacus Games Package was torn open and enjoyed before I even knew it had arrived! It sparked the interest of my 8 year old, who enjoys maths and maths puzzles, immediately.
We were provide with a 30 bead abacus, a 100 bead abacus and the games book.
Whilst it took me a little while to get my head around a different style of maths manipulative and way of learning maths, all three of my kids, who are 8, 9 and 11 and profoundly different in their skill and enjoyment of maths, all found the abacus intuitive and picked it up to explore without hesitation.
Easy To Understand, With Plenty Of Support
The games book is easy to understand, with prompts on how to guide discussions of the different games and explorations that you can do that promote deep mathematicl understanding, not just surface level guessing.
However, I found the support of the dedicated Linear Abacus Facebook group was invaluable as we started to explore just how much we could with these tools.
I was often the limiting factor and underestimated the different ways this tool could be used to allow deep understanding of a wide variety of mathematical concepts, from place value to square and triangle numbers.
Learning Maths Through Games and Exploration
This isn't your usual mathematics curriculum with pages of sums and drills for your kids to fill in. Instead, it is a series of games and explorations for them to discover for themselves all kids of maths concepts, including:
- Place value
- Addition
- Subtraction
- Multiplication
- Fractions
- Complex number patterns like square and triangle numbers
These tools could easily be used to develop number sense throughout all of primary school and beyond.
My Kids Could Explore at Their Own Level
The games themselves were easy to play and use and could be done within about 15 minutes if we needed, often with very little guidance from me once I explained how to play.
However, the best learning and the most engaged all three of my children were was when I got out of the way and left them alone to explore, or provided a simple prompt. Often I used a suggestion from the Facebook group and they had the freedom to go where they wanted to with the prompts.
Whether it was exploring the relationships between triangle and square numbers or using the different colors to explore skip counting and multiplication, the abacus met each of my children where they are at in their individual maths journeys.
Is The Linear Abacus Right for You?
If you are after a series of worksheets to fill out and just want to be able to ‘check the box' that maths is done for the day, then this probably isn't the resource for you, although it you left it lying around for your kids, I'm sure you would be amazed at what they picked up exploring it on their own.
If you are after a resource that helps your kids to explore and discover deep number sense without it feeling painful or requiring you to lead them through every step, then I would definitely look into the Linear Abacus and the Game Book.
Who knew moving beads along a string could be such a deceptively simple way to encourage deep mathematical understanding.
Homeschool Parent Tamara completed this parent review of the Linear Abacus Games Book Pack with her 8, 9 and 11 year old children. The review period was conducted between July and August 2026.
