Almost every counting toy teaches adding. This one is built around taking away, which is the half that children find harder and that most toys skip. Five rings sit on a rod. The card behind says 5 − 2 =. The child slides two rings off and counts what is left. The answer is not remembered or guessed — it is sitting there on the rod.

Five arched rods stand along a red base printed One, Two, Three, Four and Five, each with its own colour of rings: blue, red, green, yellow and orange. The arch matters more than it looks. A straight post lets rings fly off the top and roll under furniture; these curve over and come back down, so rings stay on the toy while a child is working.

The wooden card that stands behind the rods is printed with a whole ladder of subtraction: five take away one through to five take away five, then the fours, the threes and the twos, with A − B = ? across the top. A parent does not have to invent questions and a child can work down the card alone once they know how it goes.

Because the rings slide freely, the same frame does simple counting long before subtraction means anything — put three on, count them, take one off, count again. Sorting the rings back into their own colours is a job a much younger sibling can do at the same table.

The base and rods are moulded in red and the rings are painted in five flat colours. There is nothing to charge, no sound and nothing that can go flat, which is what makes it a useful ten minutes during a power cut.

The Safencia price is Rs. 875 with Cash on Delivery all over Pakistan, including Lahore, Karachi, Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Message us on WhatsApp and we will confirm stock and your city's delivery charge before dispatch.

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