When you walk into a classroom, you wouldn’t expect to see yoga balls instead of chairs, but when students walk in Mr. Waghorne’s room, it’s a completely normal sight. As weird as it may seem, using stability balls instead of regular seats have many benefit to your health.

The idea for such strange seats came from an elementary school. “When I visited my daughter’s kindergarten classroom at Caraway, I was inspired by the stability balls used as chairs that were purchased with grant funds,” Mr. Waghorne said. After seeing the stability balls, Mr. Waghorne applied for a grant to receive a class set of stability balls, and in December of 2014, he finally received them.

At first, there were some issues with having stability balls in the classroom. Where would these new seats be stored? “Storage was a pretty big problem last year,” said Mr. Waghorne. “I came up with a storage system by attaching a wire to the wall of my classroom, creating a rack to store the balls off the ground.” Although this problem was solved, there were still some minor issues, one of which was navigating around the classroom. When there are larger classes it’s harder to move around the classroom easily. “I try to minimize this by keeping student seating flexible, allowing students to choose standing desks, chairs, or stability balls.” Mr. Waghorne said. 

Students sit too long over the course of the day, and having seats that allow movement helps kids move their muscles around more, as well as support good posture. When kids bounce on the stability balls they can get their energy out. Stability balls also force kids to change their position which helps students relieve pain from sitting for too long. Teachers should consider more options when it comes to students’ seating options. Having more unique seats can create a more interesting and enjoyable learning environment for students. “I hope that teachers are given some more options for seating by the district, too, like standing desks, stools,  Mrs. Fritch’s ‘wiggle stools’ and maybe even stability balls,” Mr. Waghorne concludes.

The more options for seating students have, the more engaging class will be. Not only do stability balls and other forms of seating improve students’ overall health and help them concentrate in class, they can also make the classroom a fun place to be.