The Hottest Toy Can Also Help Children With Learning Issues Concentrate
CHICAGO (CBS) – It is the hottest toy on the market right now, but it could also be helping students with learning issues concentrate.
CBS 2's Vince Gerasole took the toy out for a spin.
Here is the spin on Fidget Spinners…
"I think it's a great name for it," said Katherine McHenry, Building Blocks Toy Store. "It's a fidgety toy and it does this – it spins."
Building Blocks Toy Store has plenty of Beanie Babies and rubber dinosaurs, but the only Fidget Spinner left in stock belongs to owner, Katherine McHenry.
"I started playing with it and I couldn't stop – this is going to be serious," McHenry said.
It is now a seriously hot toy. In a month, the store sold close to 400 at roughly $20 each. Ball bearing in the finger-held wheel keeps its propellers spinning on and on with an appeal not just for kids.
"When I am doing this, yeah I get it," McHenry said.
"2,820-something..."
That is how many Fidget Spinners Will Amarantos and his son have sold out of the back of his car since last Thursday.
"It has kind of become a joke with my son and I," Amarantos said. "He was like, we are struggling, you should sell these Fidget Spinners and the next thing, boom it just blew up."
Amarantos tracked down distributors across the state, invested his Uber earnings and posted them for sale on Facebook.
"My phone rings all day long," he said. "It will be like two or three in the morning and my phone will be chiming. A lot of times parents and I feel like this is high school and we are doing drug deals."
Child Psychiatrist Louis Krause said the toys are also proving useful for students with autism, anxiety or ADHD.
"It allows you to relax at some level," said Dr. Louis Krause, Rush University Medical Center. "What O a, seeing with my patients, one after another, it helps them focus and remain in class for a longer period of time."
The flickering light is meditative and calming, McHenry said.
The original patent for the Fidget Spinners expired well over a decade ago, which means just about anyone can make and sell them, according to McHenry.