THE USE OF THE HORIZONTAL ABACUS: REFLECTIONS ON TEACHING WITH A CLASS OF THE 5TH YEAR OF THE EARLY YEARS

Abstract

This work aims to report an educational experience in the early years of elementary school. Thus, the objective of this study was to investigate the contributions of teaching with the abacus to represent operations of addition and subtraction of natural numbers from base ten conversions. In the methodology, a literature review was adopted on the contributions of the abacus in the teaching of the decimal numbering system. The approach used to treat the results was qualitative. As for the objectives, the research is characterized as explanatory. About the procedures, a theoretical and practical class was worked on in a 5th grade class on the content of the decimal numbering system. The results obtained showed that the abacus contributed more significantly to the representation of addition and subtraction operations, in addition to providing more pleasurable moments of learning in the teaching of Mathematics. It is also noted that some students were able to perform the operations directly on the abacus, while others tried to solve it first mentally and only then act on the instrument.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.56238/sevened2025.018-001