About Us
Engaging Students
The SQUARE ABACUS™(pat. pend.) and accompanying activities exercise the head, the hands, the heart and the whole person for spatial, tactile & sensorial understanding of basic and advanced skills, as well as addressing core mathematical practices.
A Modern Classic
We provide a geometrically-accurate mathematical tool that has ancient roots for modern, classical learning.
Furthermore, it can be utilized for cross-curricular discussions, projects and studies involving all STEM/STEAM fields, the Arts, History and Humanities.
Appropriate for grades K - 12.
Addressing Core Math Standards
The SQUARE ABACUS™ enhances and supplements any general or special education mathematics curriculum in public, private and home school environments.
Special features include the capability to model true "square" numbers, area models with accurate dimensional relationships & proportions, angles & coordinate plane geometry concepts, and much more.
Birth of the Square Abacus
The Square Abacus Project began with a gift of a 100-bead Melissa & Doug (M&D) student abacus for my son on his 2nd birthday. Teaching math/science at a Title-I middle school in Santa Fe, NM at the time, difficulty with basic operations and math facts stood out as the most common deficiency, having the widest range of limiting affects on student performance and confidence. The principal at my school approved the purchase of a class set of 30, M&D 100-bead abacus (or abaci) for use in the academic math blocks.
The historical use of an abacus for teaching math is recognized and respected. The range of uses is many; simple moving parts, nothing to get lost or separated. One could easily observe how students of any age enjoy the movement of the beads, the sound and feel of smoothly sliding uniform parts, the instant shapes and patterns that flowed through their hands the first few minutes of ever holding any type of abacus or counting frame.
Something, however, was keeping this wonderfully simple device in the category of an ancient, and/or elementary tool/toy. If the field of beads, when pushed all together along one side, were no longer rectangular, but SQUARE, like graph paper, one could model "square" numbers, true, scalable area models, extending the capabilities to include middle- and high-school standards involving geometry, trigonometry and algebra concepts. Configuring a 100-bead student abacus to orient the field of beads into a perfect square became extra-credit for an annual Abacus Building Project. And with that, the Square Abacus was born.
Annual Abacus Building Middle School Math Project
Eric LeMasters
Founder of The Square Abacus Co.
Math & Science Teacher-Specialist
Santa Fe, NM
I began my teaching career as adjunct-faculty teaching math and science courses at the community college level for two years. I then taught math and science for six years at a Title I middle school, followed by six years as a 3rd - 7th grade teacher in a private Montessori school. All along, what I enjoyed most was creating, developing and sharing innovative ways to explain, describe or otherwise simplify complex concepts or skills. During this time, the idea for the Square Abacus was born, cultivated, trialed and tested, in both formal and informal environments. I'd now like to share this innovative tool and it's accompanying techniques with others.