A new year, a new fad
For every generation, toys and gadgets have been keeping kids in a spin
What is a fidget spinner? Unless you have been on Mars this year, you will have seen them everywhere!
Fidget spinners are the stress-relieving toys that have become the latest craze to hit school playgrounds. This palm-sized contraption has a central bearing that the user grips between index finger and thumb, and a three-pronged rotational blade that spins when given a flick with your free hand.
From hula hoops to Rubik’s Cubes, playground fads have come along every year for decades.
KNUCKLES OR JACKS
School children in the 1880s were obsessed with knuckles or jacks. However the origins of the game go way back to Ancient Rome when it was known as Tabas. It is played with usually five small objects, the knucklebones of sheep, which are thrown up and caught in various ways.
MARBLES
Losing your marbles used to have a whole different meaning. Rolling glass spheres with swirly-coloured centres around the asphalt truly took off in the 1950s and remained a popular playground pastime until the early 1980s. Everyone had their own rules and value systems that dictated whether ball bearings, agates, chinas or tombolas were worth more.
HULA HOOP
In the late 1950s, the hula hoop became a wildly popular craze. Drawing on a traditional Native American dance, the modern plastic hula hoop was invented in 1958 and became an instant hit worldwide, selling millions in just four months. Hips wiggled and twirled and tricks became increasingly elaborate.
YO-YO
Another perennial classic, yoyos came to playground prominence in the 1960s, when skilled players were able to bust out tricks like Rock the baby and Walk the dog.
CAT’S CRADLE
Usually baffling to boys but beloved by girls in the 1970s, this game originated in China and involved making elaborate string shapes between your hands before passing it on to the next player to turn into a different structure.
RUBIK’S CUBE
The fiendish 3D puzzle was invented in 1974 by architect Ern Rubik, but became a 1980s fad. It created a whole mini-industry: books on how to solve it, speed-cubing tournaments and spinoffs in assorted shapes such as the Rubik’s Snake.
TAMAGOTCHI
If the mark of a good playground craze is how long it takes to be banned, the 1990s Tamagotchis phenomenon is right up there, because it barely lasted a month.
These key ring-sized Japanese gadgets allowed children to keep a virtual electronic pet: feeding it, exercising it, cleaning up after it, with the aim to keep it alive as long as possible — much to the annoyance of teachers across the globe.
LOOM BANDS
This 2000s crafting craze involved buying a plastic pegboard to weave colourful rubber bands into friendship bracelets. It was fuelled by YouTube tutorials and was 2013’s most-Googled toy, partly thanks to David Beckham, Harry Styles, the younger royals and even the Pope wearing bracelets given to them by fans.
POKEMON GO
Nintendo and The Pokemon Company came up with the idea for this game in 2014. It was launched in July 2016 and soared in popularity, but it had begun to decline three months later in October. It is an interactive, mobile game that mobile phone GPS data and clock to show Pokemon hidden nearby. The Pokemon which appear onscreen in the app can be captured. As you go to different locations and explore different cities and towns, the types of Pokemon you encounter will change. The game brought people together from all walks of life.