Flexible Seating: Bringing The Classroom Learning Environment To Life

Funded Sep 8, 2018

Thank you so much for all of your generous donations to our Flexible Seating project. We are beyond grateful that our students now have access to such wonderful tools to help them remain focused and engaged throughout a full day of learning. We have been able to fully implement flexible seating into our classroom, where students have the option to sit in a variety of seats at their table as well as utilize various tools during work times around the classroom. In the morning, students are able to choose between wobble stools, yoga balls, donuts, regular chairs and stools in order to be productive workers when they are working at a typical table. During work times throughout the day, students are able to use stadium seats and clipboards on the floor, grab a cushion and sit with their back against a bookcase or wall, lay down on a yoga mat with a clipboard, sit or kneel at our low table or stand on a balance board and work at one of our standing tables. These options allow students to find a place to work that is both comfortable and productive for their particular learning style. Without the materials from this project, we wouldn't have been able to provide all of these options for our students throughout the day.

We are really excited by how well flexible seating is working in our classroom and have been brainstorming with our students about additional tools we could incorporate into the room as well as ways to improve our current system of choosing seating options etc. Our fifth graders are extremely involved and invested in this process as they are able to see the benefits of the tools to help in their learning. They have been tracking their choices as well as reflecting on which choices appear to be the most helpful depending on the task that they are working on. This is our ultimate goal, that students will start to realize which materials increase their productivity and work towards determining how to carry over this knowledge of their learning style into other areas of their life as well - both at home and moving into middle school next year.

We asked our students to reflect on the materials that we were able to purchase due to your generous donations and this is what a couple of them had to say.

- "The wobble stools really help me focus!"

- "Thank you so much for your donations. I really love the stadium seats because there are many choices to help me get comfortable and complete my work!"

- "I really like the clipboards because they are awesome and they are great for when you are sitting on the floor. I can now work anywhere in the classroom!"

- "Thanks for all of the materials that you donated. The wobble stools and stadium seats really help me. I have been learning better and don't get as stressed while I am working."”

With gratitude,

Ms. Evans