Let’s make your school a more inviting space for active seating! Here are four places where you can implement active seating and different ideas for each:

  1. Classroom – This one’s the obvious one. It’s likely your space, so you can arrange things however you want. Try active chairs with backs, wobbly chairs, stability balls, and different types of active stools. You can see more about how to design your space at this blog: https://blog.moving-minds.com/2022/06/30/how-to-refresh-your-classroom-space/
Classroom Active Seating Space Classroom Active Seating Space

 

  1. Hallways – You’ll need to clear this with administrators, but the hallways are prime locations for active/sensory walls and floors. Options include floor tape, paintings, or pre-packaged stickers. This may include hopscotch, hopping/jumping options, mirroring, pathways, mazes, and counting/alphabet spaces, among others. Positive sayings can be part of the path. An amazing physical education teacher friend of mine incorporated these ideas in her school hallway.
Hallway activity Hallway activity Hallway activity
Hallway activity Hallway activity

 

  1. Faculty/Staff lounge – Providing active seating in the lounge provides employees with opportunities to engage in different types of core activities while they are eating lunch, resting, visiting with others, or simply on a break. Adults are human, too. They need breaks and active options as well.
  2. Front lobby – Housing active spaces and seating in the main office and front lobby sends the message to parents/guardians and visitors that this school values active learning. These options may include the same suggestions as those for classrooms and hallways. These are inviting spaces for people in the community and those who may not have stepped foot in a school for a decade or more to see how education is changing and evolving to fit the needs of students.

Here’s to increasing activity and implementing active seating in your school!