My students need furniture that is age-appropriate, in both size and design, and allows for more flexible movement options. These chairs by the Smith System provide multiple ways students can sit and move in the library.
Our school is a Title I elementary school of around 290 students, tucked against a beautiful bay in a small town in Alaska. As the only elementary school in our town, we benefit from having a wide variety of backgrounds and abilities in our student body.
I have the pleasure of seeing preK-grade 5 students throughout the week and offer different activities and lessons to promote movement throughout the library.
Our students enjoy exploring in collaborative groups and alone, whether it's learning about book awards in a 'mock committee', becoming better digital citizens, building a structure, putting a puzzle together, or reading to a 'reading buddy'.
Our library is slowly becoming more of a hub, where you may see two classes sharing reading or coding activities together, a class working on puzzles to solve combinations to open a breakout box, or individual students coming in to find more books to read. Our school atmosphere promotes collaboration and creativity and the library is embracing its role in supporting our students.
My Project
This project is fairly straight-forward, and an elemental need in any personalized learning space. My students would benefit from chairs that are made for, well, students. Picture a small child whose legs stick almost straight out from a too-big chair. That is the reality for many of my students when sitting in our more traditional library chairs. The chairs are stiff and bulky, awkward to move, and offer one seating position: completely upright.
I'm attempting to make a shift from the adult-sized, adult-centric furniture we currently have to furniture that better fits the size and age and energy of my students.
The Smith System Flavor chairs offer kid-friendly sizes and kid-friendly features that will allow students to move the chairs in ways that would keep them more comfortably seated and more likely to remain engaged.
We all know that students take myriad positions while seated at desks and tables, and these chairs let students sit forwards, backwards, or sideways, and the backs are flexible as well. This means students who need to wiggle or slump or turn or bounce have multiple options to do so, while remaining close to their peers and lesson materials. Our district focus on personalized learning means my students need furniture that accommodates a variety of learning styles, and these chairs fit that bill.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mrs. Doepken and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
