KNOX TOWNSHIP- A West Branch kindergarten teacher used an online donation site to purchase new classroom seating in an effort to make learning easier for her students.

Sarah Jones, a kindergarten teacher at Knox Elementary School, has changed her classroom seating to make it more developmentally appropriate for her 20 students. Using a tactic she found online, she has incorporated hokki stools (an ergonomic stool that lets students keep moving while sitting still), stability balls and different table heights to help the students burn energy while working as well as build core muscles needed to sit in traditional chairs.

“I wanted to offer a variety of seats, something more developmentally appropriate for the students,” Jones explained. “I have been teaching kindergarten for several years and have found that typical chairs were difficult for a 5-year-old to manage. They would tip them, fall out of them, their feet would barely reach the floor and, most importantly, they physically lack the core body strength to sit in a chair and accomplish tasks at a table.”

Jones used DonorsChoose.org to raise $1,500 to purchase six hokki stools, six stability balls, four pillows and a short table that she added to a tall table at which to stand and a traditional table and chairs. Half the funds were donated by Google, while friends and family donated the other half, she said.

“There was no cost to the district or myself,” Jones said. “[The project] was funded entirely through the generosity of others.”

Jones said that the students have handled the new seating very well so far. Having more options has helped them perform better, she added.

“It provides an opportunity to let out energy while working, helps them build that core strength they don’t have yet,” she said.

A kindergarten teacher with the district the past five years, Jones said she got the idea for alternative seating from an online blog of a North Dakota second-grade teacher who championed the seating arrangement for her students, saying it helped them perform better. She said she secured funding in December and changed the seating during the semester change in January