Rainbow loom bands
If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.” My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. “Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight.
#Rainbow loom bands portable
Loom bands also seem to fit kids' mobile lives: "They're portable and wearable," Edwards says, so younger kids can make them "in the backseat of a car waiting for one of their siblings to get out of ball practice."Ībout a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”: In Volkman's neighborhood, the school put a "moratorium" on the bracelets, she says, because entrepreneurial kids had begun selling them to classmates. And, Ross says, "Our principal has them up her arms." While boy crazes like Bakugan balls and Pokemon cards are about collecting and competition, many kids make loom band items to give to friends and family.Īt Ross' son's school, a group of students recently sold loom bands to raise funds for an animal shelter.
They don't always create exactly what they set out to make, but they're usually proud of the result.Įdwards says the experience of "social comparison" is another key stage of development for kids this age: "Feeling like you can do something that's at least as good as your peers if not better than your peers," she says, leaves kids feeling competent and connected with others. They love attempting increasingly complex designs taught in these videos, but they also like the freedom to customize them as they wish. Ross says her kids search YouTube for instructions if they see a friend wearing a design they haven't tried yet. Loom bands can be woven into just about any shape, especially with the help of step-by-step videos available at. "If he can't find his loom," Jones says, "he will make them with his hands." Shauna Jones has seen her 9-year-old son, Jordan, put effort into loom bands that he doesn't put into much else. "And you want to keep going until it's done." With loom band weaving, kids must choose what to create (it's gone beyond bracelets to everything from backpack fobs to Minecraft-style action figures), pick a color scheme and style of weaving, gather the materials and then do the necessary weaving steps in the right order.Īs work progresses, "you can see it starting to make a pattern," 8-year-old Cooper explains. Kids in this age group are also developing "executive function," the ability to plan and execute tasks, Edwards says.
"Anything that helps them to use those hands together, left and right, helps to develop those areas of the brain and the muscles themselves." "Right around age 7, you see fine motor skills taking off," says Cynthia Edwards, professor of psychology at Meredith College in Raleigh, N.C. Loom bands are popular among kids age 7 to 12, a key time for developing many of the skills that weaving crafts can teach.
It also helps, Volkman thinks, that they use rubber bands rather than fluffy yarn or delicate materials. Ross and Volkman both find that while many craft products are packaged in pink boxes emblazoned with pictures of smiling girls, the gender-neutral packaging of loom band products make them more boy-friendly. "There's a sense of accomplishment" that comes with finishing a bracelet, Tricia Ross says, and it's enough to inspire her son to "sit there until it's complete." He's begun taking orders for bracelets from his younger sister, cranking them out in the styles and color schemes she requests. But he and many of his male classmates in Charlottesville, Va., have seized on loom bands. Tricia Ross' 8-year-old son avoids playing with any of his older sisters' toys. Liz Cheney’s last stand: Why she is staking her career on Jan.