Fidget Spinners: From Banned to BandWagon to Banked

Free Fidget Spinners Lesson Collection

If that’s all you came here for, Scroll To The Bottom Of The Post! 
Have a great time with these, they’re awesome!
Now…I also hope you’ll keep reading.

BANNED:

The process that has brought me to this post today is the most exciting thing about being a connected educator, especially on twitter. On April 24th, 2017, I heard about the Fidget Spinner. I’ll call that Day Zero. For a moment, I thought to myself…”oh well, there’s another fidget toy now.” Then, later that same day, I read article after article and saw twitter post after twitter post sharing the same message…

BAN FIDGET SPINNERS FROM THE CLASSROOM!!

If you know anything about me, my book Instant Relevance, or our weekly twitter chat #MakeItReal, you know that this type of commentary is nothing more than a challenge. So, on April 25th, I wrote the #MakeItReal Moment Number 7 blog post about embracing the Fidget Spinner in the classroom instead of banning it.

There were two major reactions to that post. One (smaller reaction by far and interestingly enough…centered mostly in the UK) was “no thank you, I’d rather teach things that are important by lecturing.”

The second, and much larger reaction was “Absolutely! What a great idea! Anyone out there doing this already?” And the shift began…from Banned, to Bandwagon!

BANDWAGON:

On Wednesday, May 3rd, the #MakeItReal Chat was focused on grabbing hold of the fads that students love, particularly Fidget Spinners, and making Relevant, Connected, Valuable learning experiences for our students.

On May 4th I posted the Fidget Spinner Follow Up post, sharing ideas that several teachers had shared with me through twitter and had been used by other teachers all over the country.

The Fidget Spinner movement had gone from Banned, to Bandwagon. Teachers everywhere were jumping on, but not just to follow, to lead. They created lessons, activities, experiences, videos, flipgrids, padlets, and best of all, they said “yes” to students who asked, even silently, “Can school be something I like today?”

BANKED:

So I’d like to share with you this document of

20+ Fidget Spinner Activities

gathered from excellent educators across the globe, to be added to your Lesson Bank! Share it widely, use it often, and more importantly, approach future experiences in your own classroom from this same mindset.

Move away from saying no. Move away from negativity. Move away from stifling curiosity.
Move from Banned, to Bandwagon, to Banked.
The investment will pay larger dividends than you can imagine.

9 Comments

  1. Alice Taylor

    Yea but if they are allowed in classroom without planned activities as they are now then kids will be watching the student that has one instead of listening to teacher.. Agree?

    1. Denis Sheeran

      That’s totally the point of sharing these lessons and how to find more! And if the student can learn more by watching a student interact with something than they can from listening to a teacher, then go for it! Teachers shouldn’t simply continue depositing information from them to their students. These experiences model how their students learn, which is much better than a silent compliant classroom.

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