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

I’m in deep denial about the fact that new year is almost upon us again! It’s been the fastest and the longest year at the same time, and I can look back and see some good things as well as some things I wish had gone differently.

Doing a year in review with your kids — whether in the classroom or at home — is a good way to capture some of their memories and the things they really liked about the year gone by.

There are a lot of different printable year in review worksheets you can use if you want to make this super easy. Here are links to a few (often part of larger posts about NYE celebrations with kids that are worth a read, too):

Teach Beside Me has lots of fun printables fro the end of the year, including a year in review that covers favorite memory, funniest memory and the best book they read, among other topics.
NurtureStore‘s version has space for a self-portrait and prompts like favorite toy, best day out this year and future dream job.
Remember favorites, their “best idea” of the year and have room for setting goals for next year with this one from The Keele Deal.
The year in review from Yes We Made This has room for drawing or writing and includes things like something they learned, a memory they made and a place they visited.

Of course you could pretty easily make your own year in review for the whole family to do that asks questions based on what you most want to remember. (Favorite video game? Best friend? Favorite family memory?)

And if after the year in review you’re ready to look ahead a bit, Mrs. Merry has new year’s resolution printables to inspired kids to look ahead and set goals for things they want to try. You can totally fill this one out as a grownup, too.

[Photo: Mrs. Merry]

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