In Pennsylvania, a teacher at Westtown-Thornbury Elementary School, is now using yoga balls in place of the usual stationary chairs in the classroom. They said that it helps the students focus more on the lesson instead of being distracted. While they are learning the lesson in the classroom they are also improving their balance and core strength because it is harder to sit on a big yoga ball than it is to sit on a normal chair. Studies show that making the kids sit on the yoga balls it forces them to try to stay balanced which causes muscle engagement and increased blood flow, which helps the students to become more aware of what is going on in the classroom. Sitting on these yoga balls allows kids to fidget around but without disrupting the class.
I personally don't think that I would allow these yoga balls in my classroom. Mostly because I think a lot of kids would take advantage of having them and be bouncing them around and messing with them. If the teacher would ever leave the room the kids would probably be throwing them all over the place and bouncing around on them. I honestly think that if I had a yoga ball in a classroom I would be messing with it all the time so I personally don't see how this really helps the kids focus at all. I'm sure that it could help, but at the same time is could just as ineffective.
I think that this would be a great idea but there are some cons to it, like the above listed. I would have one class test it to see if it works and if it did slowly get more classes to switch to it and eventually you will get all the classes to sit on them. I think that this would be a bad idea because kids would probably throw them and bounce on them all the time and get distracted from class.
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