Melissa & Doug Classic Wooden Abacus

This brightly colored wooden abacus is a great first calculator for kids to learn counting, patterns, colors and more. The 100 colorful wooden beads slide smoothly on this classically styled, high-quality frame.
This wooden “calculator” helps teach math skills, patterning and color recognition. Slide and count the beads with this timeless counting frame. Fun activity ideas included!

Melissa & Doug Classic Wooden Abacus Reviews:

I’ve owned this for a year and my son has gone from just watching me move it around as a newborn, to rolling the balls, to sliding them back and forth. Its great because it makes sounds, its large and colorful, and moves.

The choking hazard warning comes from the fact that the wooden pieces used to hold the thing together are inadequately glued. Today, my 18 month old son finally succeeded in getting the top wooden dowel to rotate. I took the toy away and was able to confirm that with a little prying on the wood, the metal bars would lose alignment and be able to release all the little balls (which at least have a hole in them, but, still…)

I drilled a hole slightly smaller than the threads of a drywall screw down the center of the dowel, and one slightly larger than the threads – just slightly smaller than the head of the screw – in a matching location on the outer (left and right) two wooden pieces. By doing this, I was able to tightly fasten the dowel with a screw at either end without having any of the head of the screw stick out of the wood. Now, the dowel cannot rotate at all because of the additional friction on its ends imposed by the screw.

I will be monitoring the base of the unit to make sure that the wood does not separate here either, but if it does, a similar solution should remedy the problem.

I give this toy a 5 in everything except durability, where it gets a mere 1. It’s too bad America’s “disposable culture” doesn’t allow for the concept of repairability – it was easy to fix with tools everyone should have in their home or apartment.