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Mrs. Morales from Winter Garden FL is requesting flexible seating through DonorsChoose, the most trusted classroom funding site for teachers.

Breaking Barriers

Help me give my students provide my class with 18 Balance Balls to assist my students in channeling their energy and capturing their attention in different ways in order to obtain the best results possible.

  • $379 goal

Hooray! This project is fully funded

Hooray! This project is fully funded

My Students

I am a fourth-grade teacher in the Dual Language Spanish Program at Tildenville Elementary School in Orlando. My group consists of eighteen (18) students. My students come from different nationalities and ethnic backgrounds. The breakdown is as follows: Dominican Republic 5%, Argentina 5%, U. S. 5%, Nicaragua 5%, Colombia 11%, Mexico 33% and Puerto Rico 33%. Of the 18 students, 28% belong to the ESE Program and 38% are from the ESOL Program. 88% of the students successfully completed the FSA test in Reading and Math at levels 3, 4, and 5.

My Project

I have observed that my students are quite restless or active in class. Moreover, 94% of them did not pass the STAR Linguistic Test. I am looking at different strategies to channel their energy and to capture their attention. I want my students to meet and surpass their goals during this school year. I have read many articles and I am particularly interested in one of them, ¨Channeling energy in the classroom: the balance ball¨. The use of these big balance balls by the students in the classroom lead to a higher degree of concentration thus helping to improve their learning ability. These balance balls help the students to sit straight and to activate their muscles and the areas of the brain responsible for the maintenance of balance. Some studies suggest that these types of balls also lead to a quieter and more attentive classroom. When the students sit on these balance balls, both sides of the brain are activated in order to keep the body balanced. When the brain is stimulated, it focuses on learning, on the processing of new information, on concentration, on sustained attention and on the note-taking process.

In the 1980s, some occupational therapists began to recommend these types of support systems for educators, but it was not until 2003 that the “American Journal of Occupational Therapy” systematized the results on the use of balance balls.

The conclusion was that children with ADHD or attention difficulties tend to improve their attention when they sit on this type of balanced support.

In addition, a Mayo Clinic Study, as well as other types of similar studies, have concluded that children with excess energy also would benefit from any minimal movement on these balls since it allows them to vent the extra energy and raise their attention level "

Mrs. Morales
Grades 3-5

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Where Your Donation Goes

Materials Cost Quantity Total
Gaiam Kids Stay-N-Play Children's Balance Ball - Flexible School Chair, Active Classroom Desk Seating with Stay-Put Stability Legs, Includes Air Pump, Blue, 52cm • Amazon Business $15.98 18 $287.64

Materials cost

$287.64

Vendor shipping charges

FREE

Sales tax

$0.00

3rd party payment processing fee

$4.31

Fulfillment labor & materials

$30.00

Total project cost

$321.95

Suggested donation to help DonorsChoose reach more classrooms

$56.81

Total project goal

$378.76

How we calculate what's needed

Total project goal

$378.76

4 Donors

-$302.00

Donations toward project cost

-$256.70

Donations to help DonorsChoose reach more classrooms

-$45.30

match offer

-$76.76

Match offer toward project cost

-$65.25

Match offer to help DonorsChoose reach more classrooms

-$11.51

Still needed View calculationHide calculation

$0.00

Our team works hard to negotiate the best pricing and selections available.

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Project Activity

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