I was inspired to get a trampoline for my classroom. I wasn’t sure that it would be approved because… Well, come on…. it’s a TRAMPOLINE for Pete’s sake.
But, there has been a very big push for Kindergarten this year and “thinking outside the box” styles of learning so I asked, and well….. WE GOT THEM!
Ask and you shall receive! Not only did it get approved but our whole grade level got them! Bonus, I didn’t have to purchase it myself. This was a huge win because I usually have to buy things out of pocket. Our district is very strict on what we spend money on.
Because we got them so late in the year, the main use for them was behavior management. We used a clip chart at our school (I know the ole dreaded clip chart but this was a mandate- 2016.) Well, I rewarded my silver and gold students with 20 jumps for silver and 100 jumps for gold! It was great because all the kids would count together and watch. It was extremely positive motivation.
I would also give students 10 jumps if I just caught them doing something extra special. If they were nice or being perfect in the hall when others were pressuring them to do the wrong thing, I would say, “Great job on staying quiet when your neighbors were trying to talk to you. You can have 10 jumps when we get back to class.” Positive peer pressure and reinforcement helped tremedously.
It was a great way to give a reward to a student that may not have been a “silver” that day but certainly had moments deserving of a quick reward. It was fantastic!
I can’t wait to think of other uses for the trampoline next year when I have more time with it.
Actually, I didn’t have very many students trying to mess with it or catapult off of it. I was a little worried that may happen and someone would get hurt. However,my kids were definitely more mature at the end of the year so this wasn’t an issue.
The beginning of the year may be different when it comes to trampolines in the classroom. I will probably not take out the trampoline until we have our routines and procedures down. Especially for moving around the room so that this doesn’t become an issue.
Do you have a trampoline in your classroom? Any ideas on how to use it or how you implement it from the beginning? I’d love to know!
This is the closet to our trampoline that I could find on Amazon at the best price.
Update: Trampolines in the Classroom
Update: So it’s been a few years since I wrote this initial post in 2016. I thought I’d bring it over from my old blog and update it. I must say that I mostly used the trampolines in the classroom as a rewards system. There were 2 other ways that I utilized them.
First, I used it during morning meeting. Each student would take a turn going to the center of rug (with the trampoline). Then we would do our chant for the morning. “Goodmorning! Hooray! We are so glad (insert name)’s here today! Yippee, Hooray! The student would jump off and choose another student. Any student that jumped too crazy would lose their privledges.
Last, we also used it as a tabletop for centers. Two students could choose to take their center to the trampoline and it doubled as a tabletop. They would place their center pieces on the trampoline while they were working. This helped justify the space that it took up in the room.
