To Sit or Stand? That is the Question!

I teach Kindergarten so I definitely understand that my students need LOTS of opportunities to MOVE MOVE MOVE!!!    I have my room strategically arranged so that when we are transitioning from one thing to the next, we are also moving to a new spot in the room.  For example, we start off the day at our tables, then we move to the carpet for calendar, then we either move to math stations or to a different carpet.  We do a lot of Dr. Jean songs that get us standing up and moving, GoNoodle, as well as other type of movement activities throughout the day. I've seen a lot on the internet or social media about kids sitting on balls instead of chairs, standing at special tables instead sitting in chairs, etc.  Teachers at my school use tables, desks, chairs, or stools for their students. One part of my day that I am always trying to incorporate more movement into is my Fundations time.  This is about a 30 minute chunk of time where we are engaged in different letter activities.  I love it and find Fundations to be very beneficial for my students.    Today we were getting ready to practice "sky-writing" the new letters we had learned.  Normally I have them stand up behind their chair to do this.   However...get ready for this...I said..."Sit on your tables."  I'm pretty sure that I had 16 pairs of eyes look at me with a strange look and I'm pretty sure they were thinking..."What did she just say?!"  They even started to look around to see if their friends would start sitting on their table.  I repeated the directions again and then they started sitting on the tables (with a few giggles thrown in there!).  We began to sky-write the letters from our tables and they were SO ENGAGED!!!!  They sat back down in their chairs and we proceeded to get our Fundations dry erase boards to practice writing their letters.  I decided to try another idea and after giving directions, I gave them the option to sit OR stand while their were writing their letters.  Normally I just have them sit in their seats to do this.  I COULD NOT believe how much more engaged they were just by giving them the CHOICE to sit or stand!  I kept emphasizing that was their CHOICE to sit or stand while they were writing their letters.  I think whenever a 5 or 6 year old hears that something is their choice, they get excited!

 Now I'm going to admit to you that I can't believe I've never tried something like this sooner!!!  We will definitely be doing this again! Do you give your students the choice to sit or stand?  Do you use chairs in your classroom or do they sit on something else?  I love hearing new ideas and what other teachers are doing to keep their students engaged in learning!!