Schools

Students Switch from Chairs to Exercise Balls

Exercise balls let kindergartners move while working.

A class of kindergarteners at glued squares of blue and green tissue paper to larger piece of paper during an art lesson in the classroom last week.

As they dabbed the glue, the 20 students wiggled and bounced atop purple exercise balls. And for the most part, they stayed seated during the 45 minute class—no small feat for a group of 6-year-olds.

Margaret Blackburn’s class is the first at Null--and perhaps in the whole St. Charles School District--to swap traditional chairs for exercise balls.

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Blackburn, a second-year teacher, said the balls are a way for the kids to stay focused on the task at hand. The kids are able to wiggle while staying in their seats, rather than running around the classroom. 

On a snow day this winter, Blackburn stumbled onto an online video of a class using the balls as chairs and instantly thought it might work for her students.

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“I have a lot of different discipline issues this year,” she said. “We had struggled to find an outlet for these kids.”

The cost to purchase the balls was around $600, said Blackburn. Although the St. Charles School District Foundation provides grant funding to teachers for projects such as this, the deadline to apply had passed. Blackburn said she was unable to find other grants to provide resources to help with behavior issues.

So, she asked friends, family members and other teachers if they would be interested in contributing toward the cost. The Null Elementary School Parent Teacher Organization also contributed funding.

It will be challenging to truly measure the impact the balls have on student learning, however, Blackburn is still tracking the number of behavior incidents in her classroom.

“It’s an observable focus, that’s what we hopes leads to increased achievement,” Null's principal Gina Piccinni said.

During the three weeks the class has used the balls, Blackburn said she’s noticed a difference.

 “It helps the kids who have (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder),” she said.  “They have that positive outlet where they can move and not get in trouble for hitting their friends.”

A list of rules with using the balls is always up in the classroom. If a student uses the ball inappropriately, he or she has to swap the ball for a regular chair.

Carter Kincaid, 6, said he likes the balls better than chairs because he can bounce on the balls.

The chairs are “not comfy,” he said. “They are hard. These are squishy.”

Denia Strickland, 6, likes it when the class sings the hokeypokey song together turns themselves around while sitting on the balls.

“When I had the chair, I was so excited to get the balls,” she said.

Next year, Blackburn will move from Null Elementary to the newly reopened Blackhurst Elementary School, where she will teach first grade.

The balls are coming with her. Other teachers at Null have expressed an interest in trying it in their classrooms next year, it’s just a matter of finding funding, said Piccinni.


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