Thursday, October 10, 2013
Comfortable classrooms
When I had my class on the middle school learner last spring, we talked a great deal about how classroom environments could be made more comfortable for the students and match their physical needs better. Most of what we talked about we're great ideas, but I feel that ideas like tables students could stand at and squishy balls to play with are rarely implemented. It probably doesn't come to fruition due mainly money and partly simple follow through. However, I observed a class today that through the generously of a PTA grant had exercise balls available for students to sit on instead of chairs. Although it wasn't necessarily apparent whether they aided in attention over the 40 minutes I was observing, I was so thrilled to see the students getting their wiggles out during class in a generally non disruptive way. Great use of grant money in my opinion.
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I love this idea, but I have never seen it in action before. I'm glad to hear that it wasn't too disruptive. After spending some time in early morning middle school classes, I could see using exercise balls to help students stay alert and wake up a bit more.
ReplyDeleteWow! I love this idea, I bet a lot of students benefit from it! I am also observing a classroom in a school that had some extra funds and was able to purchase some of these awesome chair cushions for elementary school students:
ReplyDeletehttp://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51JVDh0vflL.jpg
I tried sitting on one and I think it makes a big difference to sit on a soft cushions, as opposed to hard metal for 5 hours every day! I wonder if there any realistic ways to get rid of those old school chairs even in schools that do not have extra funds for alternating their classroom environment?