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Ms. Schuermann’s Classroom Edit display name

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Our classroom is a wonderful and wiggly environment! Students try their best to control their daily wiggles but sometimes it is hard. For third graders, the expectations for learning are high and sometimes for these 8 and 9 year old students, sitting still is the hardest part. Using exercise balls and stands instead of chairs is an exciting way to engage students brains and bodies at the same time and help students get the wiggles out while working and learning! Research tells us that when your body is engaged, your brain is as well--it is called actively sitting. Students may be moving their legs a bit, wiggling some, but their upper body is focused on writing, reading, math, and/or listening to their teacher. A research study found in the American Journal of Occupational Therapy researched the effects of using stability balls in the classroom instead of traditional chairs. Their findings showed increased levels of attention, decreased levels of hyperactivity, and increased time on task and in seat or on ball. With this research and others, I knew it was important to give students the option of stability balls in our classroom so that they could have the best chance at success in their daily learning at school. I am not the type of teacher to make students sit down all day at their desks, in fact I benefit from movement in my own learning. The idea of using stability balls came to me during a staff meeting that I attended. As I sat their listening, I noticed how much my own body needed to move in order to attend to what was being taught. It gave me amazing insight to how my students must feel everyday in their own learning, and gave me the drive to want to help them!

About my class

Our classroom is a wonderful and wiggly environment! Students try their best to control their daily wiggles but sometimes it is hard. For third graders, the expectations for learning are high and sometimes for these 8 and 9 year old students, sitting still is the hardest part. Using exercise balls and stands instead of chairs is an exciting way to engage students brains and bodies at the same time and help students get the wiggles out while working and learning! Research tells us that when your body is engaged, your brain is as well--it is called actively sitting. Students may be moving their legs a bit, wiggling some, but their upper body is focused on writing, reading, math, and/or listening to their teacher. A research study found in the American Journal of Occupational Therapy researched the effects of using stability balls in the classroom instead of traditional chairs. Their findings showed increased levels of attention, decreased levels of hyperactivity, and increased time on task and in seat or on ball. With this research and others, I knew it was important to give students the option of stability balls in our classroom so that they could have the best chance at success in their daily learning at school. I am not the type of teacher to make students sit down all day at their desks, in fact I benefit from movement in my own learning. The idea of using stability balls came to me during a staff meeting that I attended. As I sat their listening, I noticed how much my own body needed to move in order to attend to what was being taught. It gave me amazing insight to how my students must feel everyday in their own learning, and gave me the drive to want to help them!

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