Learning Activities with Fidget Spinners

Fidget spinners do not seem to be going away. My daughter is doing summer camp classes at her school and she came home last week with a DIY fidget spinner, and I’m still seeing a lot of projects for making and using these toys.

So why not use them in learning activities?

Making your own fidget spinner would be a great place to start. There are some options in the link above, but Red Ted Art probably has the most different ideas, and printable templates you can use to make your own.

Once you have a spinner or two, what to do with them?

Tot Schooling has some fun ideas for fidget spinner challenges that can be used to help kids with sight words, letters and numbers, and there’s a blank printable page you can fill in with other challenges. Maybe a physical challenge like do five jumping jacks, touch your toes five times and so on, see how far you can get before the spinner stops.

You could also use the spinner as a timer. How many words can your child read, or how many math problems can they do, before the spinner runs out? This is another good place to work in physical activity — keep moving until the spinner stops!

Though this isn’t strictly educational, teaching kids to clean up after themselves and do their chores is important, too. So why not play beat the spinner while your kid cleans up their room? Or make a spinner chore chart? Mark one of the arms, then the child has to do whatever chore the spinner lands on. Check out this one from We Are Far from Normal, which has other ideas for using spinners to help with the chores, and printable pie charts you can fill in with chores.

Do you do things beyond just spinning your fidget spinners? I’d love to hear about it. Looking for more resources? Check out these board games for learning Math and Multiplication?

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Summer Reading Printables and Tips for Parents

The celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe is important throughout Mexico and other parts of the world. Her feast day is Dec. 12, and the celebrations honoring her appearance to Juan Diego in 1531 begin a few days before that.

Whether you celebrate yourself or just want to share about the celebration at home or in your classroom, Las Mañanitas: The Beautiful Celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe is a good place to start. The book, by Ernesto Joel Vega Rosales and Jeanette Gonzalez Seneviratne, with illustrations by Dana Sanmar, tells the story of a family’s celebration of the feast day in both English and Spanish.

They prepare with a novena, which is nine days of prayers and preparations. The children, Lucia and Pablo, are given special outfits made by their grandmother that look like what Juan Diego might have worn when he saw Our Lady. The book describes the prayers that are made each day, such as a prayer for respect for life, for families and for the indigenous people of the Americas, to name a few.

As told in the book, Juan Diego was a native Mexican born near modern day Mexico City. His given name was Cuaauhtlatoatzin, which means “He who speaks like an eagle.” When he converted to Christianity his name was changed to Juan Diego, and as he walked to church he passed a hill called Tepeyac. One day he heard the birds singing especially beautifully and a voice called him to go to the top of the hill.

There he saw Our Lady of Guadalupe, who asked him to tell the bishop she wanted a chapel built in her name at the foot of the hill. The bishop asked for a sign that Juan Diego really saw her, and later she had him collect flowers that she blessed and take them to the bishop. When Juan Diego dropped the flowers, an image of Our Lady could be seen on his cloak, which is still on display in her basilica to this day.

The feast day is celebrated as mañanitas, which includes singing, indigenous music and dancing, and children presenting flowers to Our Lady. Juan Diego is remembered today as being humble, brave and faithful, and was the first indigenous American made a saint.

The book is colorful and tells the story in a clear way, and it’s fun to have it both in English and Spanish if you teach Spanish or speak Spanish at home or in the classroom. It’s a great way to learn the basics of the celebration and the story of Juan Diego and why he is still remembered today.

About the book: 40 pages, paperback, published 2024 by Loyola Press. Suggested retail price $14.99.

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Have you read?

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