Anne On The Ball Teachers Page

RTI's, Responses to Interventions, are being discussed in schools across the United States. We talk about them in our new book Fitness on the Ball: A Core Program for Brain and Body.

Chapter 13 of our book new book is titled "Using Exercise Balls, Active Seating Options, and Sensory Integration Ideas in Classroom Settings" and shares our work with classroom teachers over the past 15 years since our first book "Kids on the Ball" was published.

Sensory baskets are discussed in this chapter as an integral part of adapting environments to be physically and emotionally comfortable. They are an intervention to help individuals perform better.

The basic basket we'll discuss first includes active seating devices and weighted pads used on the lap and shoulders.

The active seating devices discussed include discs, wedges, donut shaped inflated devices, and exercise balls.

The discs and wedges are gaining momentum in classroom settings as an add on to hard chairs. These particular active seating devices are easy to manage, take up little space, and appear to be doing the trick in terms of helping kids move a little more while getting and/or remaining focused.

The weighted lap and shoulder pads help many students focus and stay seated a little longer. Some students appear to be getting more work done when they have the pads on their laps and/or shoulders.

We'll give you more information about our "Anchoring Ankrons" version of weighted lap and shoulder pads later.

Stay tuned for more photos and information about these topics.