Forest Hills students get their bearings on stability balls

It may look like a bouncy ball, but it can help keep kids from bouncing off the walls. The students in Cari Nesvold and Shana Jensen’s third- and second-grade classrooms are the latest to hop on the trend of using stability balls in place of chairs in the classroom.

“It’s becoming more and more used in both the educational setting and just in the office world,” noted Nesvold.

She first saw a TV news story about the use of what are most commonly known as exercise balls in a class at Cold Spring, Minn. She saw the video and said, “That’s what we need.”

Their students were having problems staying at their desks and being productive, so she visited Cold Spring “and saw the stability balls in action.”

Last year, they started soliciting parent donations, “That’s how we ended up getting this project funded.”

This fall was the first year of trying stability balls in any Eden Prairie classroom. Both Nesvold and Jensen have exercise balls to sit on, and the Forest Hills office staff is even trying it out.

They had to measure the students because they have a certain ball based on height, and were able to order stability balls through a parent donation.

“I’m collecting a lot of data for it for my master’s project,” said Nesvold.

After seeing children use the balls for two months, though, she and Jensen have noticed a difference.

“They are so much more productive, the quality of work that we’re seeing is so much higher,” Nesvold said.

Jensen keeps her stability ball up front to sit on when reading books at story time.

“They kind of focus their energy better,” she said about the effect it has on students.

“I think it’s noticeable.”

Jensen said the use of the stability ball forces a person to use good posture.

“You feel like you’re going to be more productive,” she said.

Extra calories

There are physical benefits to the use of stability balls in place of chairs. But, in terms of classroom management, Nesvold said it helps students use excess energy.

“A lot of my research dealt with childhood obesity and movement and learning. And how those could be connected to the stability ball.”

The key thing to note about a stability ball is “it challenges the core muscles to work a little harder,” said Fabio Comana, exercise physiologist with the American Council on Exercise.

For children who are active, core muscles develop normally, he noted. Where the use of a stability ball becomes more relevant is in adults.

In the case of calories burned, “it could probably add up,” over a longer period of time, he said.

He advised that adults and children shouldn’t sit on stability balls for more than 15 minutes straight because the muscles could fatigue and this could lead to slouching.

Throughout the school day, the difference in energy used between the chair and stability ball is about 50 to 75 more calories, he estimated, or 30 to 40 calories if you alternate from ball to chair.

Because of the fact that you are sitting on something unstable, it keeps you more mentally alert, he noted.

Collecting data

Nesvold is still collecting data on student achievement, tests and physical fitness for the project, but, based on her observation, “it’s been great.”

She said she has received numerous e-mails from others interested in starting it in their classes. She also recently got a wellness grant to keep the project going and look into the storage of the balls.

The implementation was very extensive, she noted. First students would start by having a partner, and they sat on the ball for  20 minutes at a time, then worked up to more and more time until students could sit on the stability balls all day. At the end of the day, they place their stability ball atop a plastic bucket on their desk.

“They were very excited,” she said about students’ reaction to being in the pilot.

She did a survey, and “they were very enthusiastic about trying it,” she added.

She recently did a follow-up survey, and found that all students except for one said they enjoy sitting on the ball “and they think that it has helped them with their school work,” she said.

Students are allowed to bounce lightly if they want to, and they are taught to be aware of their surroundings so the ball is not popped. They get one warning before they lose the ball. 

Nesvold noted that none of her nightmares came true about those bouncy balls going everywhere throughout her classroom.

“The kids have just really taken ownership of it.”