How To Put Tennis Balls on your Classroom Chairs
Let's talk about noise level. I'm all for students talking with each other and having a "loud" classroom. What I found I couldn't deal with was the unnecessary noise my chairs were making. This is new to me because I came from a middle school classroom where we had traditional desks where the desk tops were connected to the chair. There was no movement of desks or chairs only of students. The concept of tennis balls on the bottoms of chairs is not new. I just had to figure out where to get them and quick and how to easily (and safely) cut them to put on my chairs.
Do the math, I have 24 desks with chairs in my classroom. Yikes! For the chairs alone, that is 24 chairs with four legs each. That equates to 96 tennis balls I needed! I'd love to also put them on the bottoms of the desks but I figured I'd start with the chairs first.
This post contains affiliate links.
What you need--lots and lots of used tennis balls. Key word here is used. Do not go and purchase brand new tennis balls. You will need to cut the tennis balls so there is no need for them to be perfect and clean.
There are many ways to acquire used and flat tennis balls. Here are a couple ideas:
Your county middle/high school tennis teams
Local recreation department
College/University nearby
Dog training business or Doggie Daycare
Offer to bring them a box for them to put them in and to come pick them up when it is full. Ask your school if you can get a donation receipt to give them for tax purposes.
I didn't want to wait for enough to be collected so I decided to go online and search my options. You can find bulk used tennis balls here on Amazon (Affiliate link) or sometimes on Ebay.
Now, how to cut those tennis balls. I researched how to cut tennis balls and asked coworkers how they did it. There are lots of methods out there. The biggest thing to remember is safety! Be careful! I read that the method that works best is to cut one slit. This makes it harder to put on the chairs but will mean it is is harder to get them off. You don't want the tennis balls coming off of your chairs.
I used a very sharp meat cutting knife. You can also use a new
utility knife. (Affiliate link)
Be sure to wear heavy duty work gloves so you don't slip and cut yourself. I borrowed one from my husband to hold the tennis balls in place. I sat down outside in my driveway and went to town. I held the tennis ball in one hand on the ground and then poked the knife into the ball and cut the slit.
Tennis balls have a design from the seams and I found that starting in the center of that circular area and cutting straight down to the center of the opposite area was a large enough slit. You don't want to cut too long of a slit or it will come off your chairs too easily. Keep cutting until you are finished! It took me about an hour to cut all 110 tennis balls I had. My dog was very confused at all these "broken" tennis balls!
Take your tennis balls to school and flip all your chairs upside down. Work the tennis ball onto the bottoms and then marvel at the quietness of your chairs!
Here is a quick demonstration of the noise difference of my chairs. Be amazed!
I plan on getting more for the bottom of my desks so when kids bump into them or we move seating arrangements the noise level is low. I didn't realize how much the noise from the chairs were bothering me until I had all the tennis balls on. I can now hear kids instead of chairs.
Good luck with your tennis balls and let me know if you have any questions!
