Flexible Seating!

Big changes are taking place in our classroom these days. I'm so exited to finally be trying out flexible seating with my kiddos. Getting rid of my teacher's desk 6 years ago was easy. Getting rid of assigned seating was not so easy. Don't get my wrong....I've been wanting to do this for a while. It was the silly things like giving up the chair-bags that everyone's family purchased and had monogrammed. The what-ifs had to be worked out in my head such as what to do when specials classes like guidance are held in our room or parent meeting day at the beginning of the year. When I thought about the pros of flexible seating all of this just seemed unimportant and I decided to go for it.

I posted a project on Donors Choose with the following description.

It was fully funded within 3 days! I noticed that many of the donors were not even families of my current students. There are so many people that are excited for this leap into 21st century teaching who were fully supportive of my flexible seating dream. Wow. I have received several encouraging emails and visits from parents throughout my school in the last week as well. It warms my heart to know that there are such sweet people out there that are supportive of our teachers and classrooms.

Our new items arrived on Monday morning! That's right...Amazon prime shipping is amazing. I went from posting the project to receiving my items in 5 days total. Crazy, right?!? I combined our new stability discs, wobble seats and balance balls with the items I already had. I spent that afternoon rearranging furniture until I made everything work. Click on each picture to see the new item on Amazon.


Here are a few pics from our current new arrangement. I realize this might change as we get more comfortable with our flexible seating. The dice cubes were something I picked up a few years ago at Walmart. The crate seats were made a few years back and the "buddy" bench is a yard sale find from 11 years ago. :)

One week down and so far so good. My kiddos LOVE choosing their "work space" and we have not had any issues. I am so proud at how my students just fell into our new classroom arrangement and have used our new flexible seating to maximize their learning. I'm sure there will be bumps in the road as questions and new situations arise. However, I'm confident we can work through them. I will post updates as we settle back into our routine. For now, here are a few pictures from week 1.

Flexible seating is going well! #kindergarten #iteachtoo #teachersofinstagram #teachersfollowteachers #flexibleseating #alternateseating A photo posted by Mary Lirette (@marylirette) on Feb 4, 2016 at 2:55pm PST