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Teacher has students using exercise balls as chairs to reduce fidgeting
By Harold Reutter
The Grand Island Independent
Posted Oct 13, 2008 @ 11:21 PM
GRAND ISLAND —
Fourth-grade teacher Pat Rerucha and her Shoemaker Elementary students have put a whole new spin on being "on the ball."
For the past four and a half years, Rerucha's students have used balls
designed to exercise the body's "core" or trunk muscles as classroom
chairs.
Rerucha said school nurse Betty Critel originally proposed the idea.
Critel's theory was that elementary school students weren't getting
enough exercise.
Rerucha said Grand Island's third- and fourth-graders do not have
recess. All they have is a noon lunch break and three physical
education classes per week to get exercise while attending school.
As a result, she and Critel wrote a proposal for a grant to pay for
exercise balls for Rerucha's students to sit on during class. The
application was not successful.
Rerucha forgot about the idea until mid-year, when she had one student
who just could not seem to sit still in his seat. He was not just a
fidgeter. Rerucha said he was an extreme fidgeter who would lean way
over to one side of his seat and way over to the other side. He'd also
lean back in his chair.
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