hi, this is joelle meijer. i propose to create an abacus with cardboardand beads. use 14-ply cardboard or recycle a cereal boxor a shoe box. print the pattern on thick paper. cut around the outside line and remove theinside as well. trace the outer and inner outlines of theabacus twice on the cardboard. cut out the outside and inside with largescissors or an x-acto knife. you will then have two cardboard frames. if you recycled a cereal box or a shoe box,first paint the frame of the abacus
in white to hide all the markings. to make my abacus, i used a shoe box. the background colour of the shoe box wasquite dark so i put two coats of white paint to hide the background colour of the box. next, paint both frames of the abacus in acolour of your choice. you can paint them in different colours ifyou want. to have a nice uniform colour, add a secondcoat of paint. let it dry well. decorate each of the sides of the abacus asyou wish.
i decided to decorate one side of the abacuswith dots of paint of different colours. to make dots of paint, use the back of a paintbrush or, for larger dots, the eraser at the end of a pencil. dots of paint take a long time to dry ... sobe patient! for the other side of the abacus, i decidedto decorate it using the zentangle method. i began by delineating sections with freehandlines. zentangle is a kind of artistic meditationwhere you draw different patterns, letting yourself be guided by your inspiration. in short, for kids, it's an exercise in drawingstraight, wavy or broken lines,
circles, dots, and so on. with this technique, no two abacuses willbe the same. i used a black marker to draw the patterns. after creating the frame of the abacus, itis now time to work on the rods and beads. you will need wooden skewers and beads. the hole in the beads must be large enoughto slide them on the wooden skewers. if not, replace the wooden skewers with metalrods. take scraps of cardboard and trace the shortestside of the abacus twice using the pattern.
these ends will serve as spacers later tocompensate for the thickness of the rods. take the pattern of the abacus again withthe triangular markings visible. place the pattern on the back of one of thesides you decorated earlier and then move it slightly to one side to markthe ten points where you will need to glue the wooden skewers. slide the pattern in the other direction tomark the other side of the frame. take ten wooden skewers and with plyers, cut them just a little shorter than the widthof the abacus. thread ten beads onto each stick.
you can use beads of one colour or differentcolours. for each stick, i chose to put two differentcolours: five beads of each colour, because that makes them easier to count. when you have threaded ten beads on each stick, glue the stick in place with hot glue on theframe you marked. use the marks to align them properly. next, glue the spacers to the top and bottomof the wooden skewers with white glue. match them exactly to the abacus frame. you may have to shorten the sides if theyare in the way of the wooden skewers.
these spacers will compensate for the thicknessof the sticks. put white glue on the other side of the spacersand then put hot glue on the sticks. then, without waiting, glue the other sideof the abacus on top so that the rods are between the two frames. your abacus is now ready for use. to obtain the document with illustrated instructionsand the pattern, click on the link below the video and don'tforget to visit the animaplates website where you will find hundreds of other funideas!