Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Alternative Seating in a Cutting Edge Classroom

I must admit when I get an idea I tend to go full force.  
This is going to be the first of a collection of blogs about my journey.  

My journey from a mere idea to alternative seating fully implemented in my kindergarten classroom.

Let me start by sharing with you exactly what alternative seating is.  

Alternative Seating - allowing students choice and movement in their seating options.   

As a kindergarten teacher I found myself constantly repeating "sit on your pockets, stop leaning back in your chair, sit criss cross apple sauce."



I had a number of phrases or sayings:
sit and stick
stay in your space bubble
four on the floor

My all time favorite:
(repeated at the beginning of carpet time)
"When we are on the carpet...
our eyes are watching, 
our ears are listening, 
our lips are zipped, 
our hands and feet are still and quiet, 
spoons in the air
(wave hands and arms in the air)
spoons in your bowls 
(hands in lap).

I am sure you can all relate!  
These usually lasted for about 10 minutes and then they started getting antsy.  

I began to imagine a day without nagging, a day without repeating the same directions.
How nice would that be?   But was it even possible?

That is when I decided to look for a different type of classroom seating.  Seating that worked best for my students.   I came across a few different blogs.  

A few that stood out to me:

Kindergarten Smorgasboard - Classroom Reveal
Thanks @kindersmorgie for the inspiration


So on my search I very quickly realized that this was something that I wanted to do!

But at this point I didn't know where to turn.  

There were a few things that I knew that I had to have:
funding
choices
research
and believers. 

Needless to say I lucked out...I had a passion and I knew what I wanted for my students!  

Stay tuned to see how I put my idea into motion.  

How I transformed this somewhat traditional classroom into one that is best for my students! 






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