Notice anything different about the schoolroom this year?
That's right, there are no chairs!
I gave up my chair for a ball earlier this year (or was it late last year?), and I've come to prefer the ball by far.
I tried a standing desk for a while, but standing for so long caused quite a bit of lower back pain so I went back to my ball.
When trying to wrap my brain around another year of homeschool, I thought I'd see how the kids do sitting on balls instead of chairs. I figured they'd benefit in all the same ways I do and not just developing core strength, but rather paying attention to where my body is and what it's doing.
I can't just slump over and drool no matter how little sleep I've had. I have sit up and engage my body as well as my mind. Those are good things for kids to do, too, right??
We've had them for about 3 weeks and so far so..... ok. It hasn't been a miracle cure for the wiggles by any stretch. They do like them. They also like to bounce on them, bounce them like basketballs and roll them around the room.
But when they're sitting and working, they do seem more engaged in their task, and they both are sitting with correct posture on them which is a nice bonus.
So we'll keep them for now, and once we get settled into a school routine we'll probably incorporate some more formal exercises using the balls.
Two articles that may answer questions that I don't address:
http://www.gearfire.net/10-reasons-to-use-an-exercise-ball-as-your-chair/
http://www.livestrong.com/article/101634-therapy-ball-exercises-kids/
1 comment:
Really cool that you're doing this! I was laughing about the ball bouncing, etc, b/c I could totally picture mine doing that. But it sounds like you're on the way to having it work out!
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