Stand Up to Learn

A while ago my principal sent around an email asking if any teachers wanted some "standing" desks built for their class.

I responded, yes, please. I can think of several kiddos that like to stand. Seems weird to me that I can stand and move around at will, but require the students to stay in one spot, sitting. So I have tried to be accommodating and allow those kids to stand or move as needed. It takes me out of my comfort zone, but that is a good thing.

She had the idea to cut PVC pipe and raise our current desks. She had some cut, but never installed them in my class.

Last week my husband posted a link to an article in our paper about standing desks. It really was cool. Read about it here. Made me think, really have to get on that for my class.

Yesterday, amidst the cranky that I was feeling I wanted to do something cool, special, get me out of my funk. So I trotted off to the office, grabbed four pieces of pipe and took them back to my class. Yes, I left the students alone, but the office is right next door, nothing could happen.

Found a sweet girl who is not usually standing, but such a rule follower that I said, help me, put these pipes on the legs and here is your new desk.

Here she is, finishing her math from the morning. She was so excited.

Today she still loved the desk.

Now all the students were around me, yelling (or at least talking loudly) that they each wanted a cool desk, too. What was I to do? I grabbed four kids, trotted back to the office to get four more pipes. Perfect, now who to choose?

This time I did choose a stander. Here he is working on the birthday page for our friend who celebrated yesterday.

He also loved it today.

We tried to do more desks, but there were no more pipes. We will have to wait until someone cuts some more.

This will definitely cut down on how much I will rearrange, but it is for a great cause.

The one problem that I see is that they still have the short chairs, so when they want to sit down it is awkward.

So, my wishlist: more pipes cut to the perfect size, and high stools to sit on when the stander wants to.