Environment matters.

In contrast to traditional school classrooms that conform with the industrial model of school, our work spaces encourage collaboration, creativity, agency, and flexibility. As David M. Kelley, founder of design firm IDEO has said, “Space is the foundation for the expression of our cultural values.” We wanted our learning spaces to change the way we think about learning, and how we choose to work with one another.

Build (Don’t Buy!) Your Own Rolling Whiteboard.

At The Number Lab we strive to make learning visible and large rolling whiteboards help us with this work. We refer to these rolling whiteboards as “Z Racks” and would be hard-pressed to run our Math Block without them. We construct our own whiteboards and are often asked by teachers that we work with how this is done, so we created a video and info sheet to give you the details. Enjoy, and happy building! (Credit given to Stanford's d.school.)

Use Foam Blocks for Comfy Seating.

Our grey foam cubes were also inspired by the d.school. We like that they are comfortable, easy to move around, and allow for good “listening postures,” but also accommodate kids who need to wiggle (they rock, lay on their stomachs, etc). We typically arrange the cubes in a half circle configuration or full circle configuration – but they also get used as chairs at our tables (which are adjustable) or even used as “desks” as times.

Warning: You have to teach kids to carry them with two hands (don’t “pinch” the corner to pick them up) and to refrain from picking at them!

The foam cubes are something you have to custom order from a foam or upholstery shop. Any upholstery shop should be able to do this for you, although they might be surprised by your request! In order to find the right density of foam, you may have to venture into the upholstery shop’s warehouse to try out sitting on different pieces of foam.

We had ours made at Capitol City Upholstery Supply. They are 16” cubes and our receipts indicate a “load factor” of 28.