I remember sitting in my elementary school classroom in a hard chair contemplating my escape. I was tired of sitting there, and thinking about anything but the task at hand. I was not at all engaged in my learning, I was merely a consumer. Nobody bothered to think about or ask about how I learned best. There was a "sit and get" mentality present in nearly all of my classrooms as I was growing up with the emphasis on the SIT portion.
Now, we know that kids don't learn best when they're sitting. An active body means an active mind, when we sit for to long our brains turn off. Even as an adult I tend to shut down when I've been sitting for to long. If that's true for me then what's it like for children or teens whose brains and bodies are not fully developed? Sitting for long periods of time is not developmentally appropriate in an elementary classroom, nor is it healthy. In fact sitting is said to be the new smoking!
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With that in mind I decided to create a kinesthetic classroom environment. One where kids can learn and move in ways that work best for them. Here's how it works, the seating in my classroom is broken into four pods.
The first pod is for students who prefer to kneel as they work.
The second pod has T-stools where students can wiggle, balance and develop core strength.
The third pod contains balance balls which are also great for getting the wiggles out while once again helping with core strength, balance and coordination.
The fourth pod is my favorite! Here we use Spooner Boards, which are marketed as skateboard trainers but we use them for rocking at our standing desks.
Students also have the option to sit anywhere around the room with clipboards or pillows to do their work. As long as they're working I pretty much let them do what works for them.
Differentiated seating isn't the only way we move! We also take tons of brain breaks throughout the day. I'm also a Zumba instructor, so for brain breaks my kids really love to dance! Dancing gets the wiggles out, resets their brains and prepares them to work. It also develops their gross motor skills and coordination!
While I love the way our classroom works, I've had other teacher's tell me I'm flat out crazy, but they're not the ones that matter. The ones that matter to me are my kids, and I don't hear any complaints from them. So for now we press on. We rock, we roll, we bounce, we dance and most of all we LEARN!
