Soroban: The Japanese Abacus

The resources on this page have been designed for teachers to use in their schools and may be used freely in that context only. They may not be reproduced or distributed further without permission.

Many of these activities can be completed on paper. However, The Japan Society can loan both teaching and pupil soroban to schools. Soroban are sold by the Association of Teachers of Mathematics (www.atm.org.uk), along with a book ‘Introducing the Soroban – a Powerful Aid for Number’.

soroban based activities
download all soroban based activities in a single file or select individual files below	download 748kb pdf file
introduction to soroban how to show numbers on the soroban simple calculations calculating change on the soroban	download 120kb pdf file
how to calculate on the soroban frame examples and graded practise exercises	download 40kb pdf file
colour the number in soroban beads two templates to practise soroban activities on paper	download 72kb pdf file
complementary numbers use a soroban to find out how much more you need to add to make 100	download 52kb pdf file
image creation using an OHP introducing mental calculation based on soroban principles	download 80kb pdf file
let’s read the soroban read off and draw significant numbers on a paper soroban frame	download 64kb pdf file
counting from ten to twenty on the soroban	download 364kb pdf file

supplementary activities using Japanese numbers
download all supplementary activities in a single file or select individual files below	download 744kb pdf file
the Japanese number grid practise writing numbers up to 99	download 376kb pdf file
numbers in kanji a shorter form of the Japanese number grid	download 52kb pdf file
numbers written in Japanese practise reading and writing numbers and dates in Japanese	download 52kb pdf file
some facts about Japan use knowledge of Japanese numbers to find out about Japan	download 40kb pdf file
counting with your fingers Japanese style you can go from 1 – 100!	download 264kb pdf file