Lattu / Bambaram (Spinning top)
Wind the string, throw, and keep it spinning.
- Players
- 1 or more
- Ages
- 8 and up
- What you need
- A wooden spinning top and a length of string
Called lattu in the north, bambaram in Tamil, and bongaram in Telugu. Traditionally turned from wood on a hand lathe by local carpenters, each one slightly different, so children knew their own top by its weight in the hand.
How to play
- 1Wind the string tightly around the top, starting from the metal tip.
- 2Hold the loose end firmly, and throw the top down and forward in one movement while pulling the string back.
- 3The pull is what makes it spin — the throw only puts it in place.
- 4Once you can spin it reliably, try lifting the spinning top onto your palm with the string.
- 5In a group, whoever's top spins longest wins.
Good for the body
Wrist strength and a whole-arm coordinated movement that has to happen in one smooth motion. It cannot be done slowly, so it trains timing rather than force.
Good for the brain
Delayed reward. A child fails perhaps fifty times before the first clean spin, and learns that repeated failure is a normal path to skill — the single most useful belief a student can hold.
A note for parents
This one takes days to learn, and that is the point. Very few things a child does now require a week of failing before the first success. The child who finally gets a lattu to spin has learned something about persistence that no lesson can teach.
Played today?
Ask a parent before going outdoors.