Before looking at this page you are advised to work through the Background Tutorial.

Number Crunchers provide two stepping stones between concrete number, e.g. MAB, and abstract number i.e. just using digits. The first stepping stone is the MAB Number Cruncher which provides an automatic and dynamic link between concrete and abstract number. The second stepping stone, the Original Number Cruncher, combines the abacus format, which is a combination of concrete and abstract, with the automatic and dynamic link between concrete and abstract.

Number Crunchers are a great tool to use in conjunction with the MAB Student Resource Book and Postcodes. In fact they can be used in conjunction with most other teaching aids. They complement other teaching aids, not replace them.

Helping Students Learn With Understanding

Many students don't survive Math/s because they have not been established in those vital foundational concepts. Number Crunchers address these concepts in a way that promotes understanding and restricts students to learning from first principles.

Column Labels

The link above contains a full discussion of Column Labels. Not all the column labels that are available will be suitable to use with this model Number Cruncher, some are designed to be used only with the Original Number Cruncher.

This manual does not exhaust the concepts for which the MAB Number Cruncher can be used. The manual focuses on some of those vital Foundational concepts. We are planning an on line illustrated manual which will cover all concepts. The current thirty-two page illustrated manual can be downloaded in .pdf format, two A5 pages at a time. Some of the files are rather large because of the graphics involved. Viewing them in Acrobat at 100% the graphics don't look that good, but they print very well. If you want to read the manual in Acrobat you might have to enlarge the pages.

Front Cover and Title Page (144k)

Contents and Page 1 (12k)
Page 1 - Read This Page First!

Page 2 and Page 3 (393k)
Page 2 - Unique Features 1 to 4
Page 3 - Unique Features 5 & 6

Page 4 and Page 5 (705k)
Page 4 - Unique Feature 7 - Counting forward or adding
Page 5 - Unique Feature 7 - Counting backward or subtracting

Page 6 and Page 7 (270k)
Page 6 - Tallying MAB
Page 7 - Zero as a Place Holder

Page 8 and Page 9 (259k)
Page 8 - Making the Largest Number
Page 9 - Making the Smallest Number

Page 10 and Page 11 (588k)
Page 10 - Analysing Numbers
Page 11 - Rounding Numbers

Page 12 and Page 13 (982k)
Page 12 - Recognising Numbers
Page 13 - Ordering and Comparing Numbers

Page 14 and Page 15 (258k)
Page 14 - Contracting Numbers
Page 15 - Expanding Numbers

Page 16 and Page 17 (382k)
Page 16 - Reading Numbers
Page 17 - Writing Numbers

Page 18 and Page 19 (1.3mb)
Page 18 - Counting Forward - Small Numbers
Page 19 - Counting Forward - small Numbers

Page 20 and Page 21 (1.3mb)
Page 20 - Counting Forward - Large Numbers
Page 21 - Counting Forward - Large Numbers

Page 22 and Page 23 (1.3mb)
Page 22 - Counting Backward - Small Numbers
Page 23 - Counting Backward - Small Numbers

Page 24 and Page 25 (1.3mb)
Page 24 - Counting Backward - Large Numbers
Page 25 - Counting Backward - Large Numbers

Page 26 and Page 27 (1.2mb)
Page 26 - Addition - Without Regrouping (Renaming, Trading)
Page 27 - Addition - With Regrouping (Renaming, Trading)

Page 28 and Page 29 (1.2mb)
Page 28 - Subtraction - Without Regrouping (Renaming, Trading)
Page 29 - Subtraction - With Regrouping (Renaming, Trading)

Page 30 and Page 31 (1.2mb)
Page 30 - Multiplication - Without Regrouping (Renaming, Trading)
Page 31 - Multiplication - With Regrouping (Renaming, Trading)

Page 32 and Page 33 (1.3mb)
Page 32 - Division - Without Regrouping (Renaming, Trading)
Page 33 - Division - With Regrouping (Renaming, Trading)

Page 34 and Back Cover (260k)
Page 34 - Using Column Labels