Thursday, March 4, 2010

Abacus!! Abacus!!!!

(say abacus like the guy in Monty Python says Albatross, it makes me giggle hehe).

I made this! With my bare hands and power tools and stuff! I'm so stinking proud of myself I can't even put it to words!

Total cost 8 dollars in wood supplies from a craft store... way cheaper than the ones you can buy online!


Supplies gathered



Unfortunately they didn't have beads with holes as large as the dowels I was using, so I had to drill them all out to a larger size... all 50 of them!



Measured, pre-drilled, and ready for painting/assembly



I just couldn't stomach the thought of pain stakingly painting every single bead, so instead my daughter and I threw them into sandwich bags, added a few drops of food coloring an rolled them around. They got the coolest looking tie dye effect!



TA DA!!!!





3 comments:

Natalie PlanetSmarty said...

Very impressive - I love your self-made abacus. One thing that I would have done differently is adding colors in groups of 5, because apparently it helps early learners to group by 5s and not by 10s.

Joyful Learner said...

That's gorgeous! Thanks for linking up! I love all the handmade math materials you've made!

Unknown said...

I think your abacus is just awesome. great job. thanks for sharing your ideas.