Donation designed to alleviate wiggles

MOSES LAKE - Fourth grade teacher Gayle Talbot said she had studied the research, and it was pretty clear that being able to wiggle around a little bit helps some kids concentrate better.

There's actually a chair pad that puts the research into practice, called a wiggle seat. But when she went looking for some, they were nowhere to be found locally, she said.

She thought that was it until a benefit presentation a few weeks ago, and grant program from Horizon Credit Union. The organization calls it the "Class Cash" program; recipients get grants from $100 to $150.

Talbot wrote a letter as part of her grant application, saying that her personal experience in the classroom showed the research was accurate, and there were kids in her classroom that would benefit from help with wiggle tendencies.

That was especially true in an age when kids are expected to work hard to meet the mark on achievement tests, she said.

Talbot said she expected the application to be the end of it. But it caught the attention of credit union officials, and they bought nine Wiggle Seats for Talbot's classroom through the Class Cash program.

Josh Allison, of the credit union, surprised Talbot with a presentation of the seats Tuesday.

"Ooooh," the kids said as Allison and Principal Ryan Pike came in, right in the middle of math no less, bearing Wiggle Seats.

The Wiggle Seats came in for inspection, and the general consensus of the class was that they looked like whoopie cushions. But everybody wanted to try them, just to see for themselves.

They weren't the only ones. "Everybody at the Credit Union wants to get Wiggle Seats," Allison said.

Talbot said she had four kids in particular in mind for Wiggle Seats, and the remaining five would be distributed by drawing sticks, and rotated among the class.