Flexible Seating #1

A couple of years ago, I read about flexible seating.  I thought it was very interesting and tried to imagine it in a primary classroom.  Most of the examples I was reading about were in high school settings and they looked amazing!  Couches, lamps and coffee tables; it looked like a living room.  Other examples I saw had wide open spaces and different table configurations.  For a while I thought about it, and then put it away.  No one I knew was doing it, no one knew what I was talking about and I lost interest, honestly.  It seemed unattainable and with the class I had at the time, there was no way I could introduce something like that and stay sane. 

Fast forward to 2016, and now flex seating is everywhere!  People in my district are muttering about it and some teachers are actually trying it in elementary schools!  My interest was reignited and I started to think about the changes I could make in my own class.  I had watched my friend Angela Gatt, from Fun in Fourth, do the switch at Spring Break and decided I would jump in.  It was June.  Many people thought I was crazy to try something at the end of the school year.  I thought I was crazy to start something like this at the end of the year, but when I sat down and really thought about it, I had many good reasons to do it.

1.  No time like the present- I'd already waited for so long, and really you don't know what will work until you do it.
2.  The kids were already antsy anyway, giving them something to concentrate on other than the calendar would be a good thing.
3.  The kids know that routines, know where everything is and were able to adapt to small changes in routing with ease.
4.  I was excited about it.

So one Sunday morning, I called Ang and I went to Walmart.  I had a cart filled with stuff and met her at my school.  I knew what I wanted to do, but I wanted her opinion and experience to back me up.  I didn't leave the school until after 5 that day, but when I did, I was energized.
Here's what it looked like:

-I kept two table groups of 4 just as they were
-I took the extension legs right out of the tables in one group
the brown table has exercise balls to sit on
-4 desks were by themselves
-4 desks were in the hall
-I scrounged a bench from the gym and had cushions on the floor for them to sit on and use the bench as a writing surface.
-1 group of desks were raised as high as they could go for a standing option.

So for options I had:
-1 wiggle stool
-kneeling
-sitting on cushions
-standing
-laying on the carpet with clip boards
-regular desks and chairs
-desks in the hall

The reactions of the kids on Monday morning was awesome!  They walked around looking at everything and loved it!