How to Make Chair Sliders out of Tennis Balls

A classroom full of 25 to 35 students sliding their chairs in and out from their desks all day, is usually pretty noisy. The legs of the chair can also cause horrible black scuff marks on the classroom floor. An easy and economical way to eliminate both of these problems is to use tennis balls as chair sliders.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

1. Gather enough tennis balls to do each student's chair. Each chair requires four tennis balls, one for each leg. New tennis balls are fine, but you can usually find used ones cheaper. Check at garage sales and secondhand stores, call local colleges to see if they have any old tennis balls to donate, or call tennis ball companies and ask about their irregulars. Sometimes they agree to sell you the irregulars for the cost of shipping.
2. Practice with one ball by cutting it and testing it on the leg of a student's chair before cutting the rest of the balls. Cut an "X" in one spot on the ball, large enough to slip the leg of the chair in, but not so large that it easily falls out. A knife works better than scissors for cutting the balls.
3. Measure the size of the "X" after you get it right and then cut the rest of the balls the same way.
4. Have each student lay their chair down on its back and then give each of them four tennis balls with the slits cut. Tell them to put one on the bottom of each chair leg and then stand their chairs back upright.

Tips & Warnings

• If you have your students move their desks around, after getting their chairs done, you might want to continue saving tennis balls until you have enough to make sliders for their desks as well. You need four tennis balls for each desk.
• If you set your classroom up in rows or groups of desks and students, you might want to color coordinate the tennis balls sliders by row or group. For example one row could be green tennis balls and the next could be yellow.