Each and every morning, when my students come through the door, I greet them and send them off to put away their things and start morning tubs. This year, I am new to this idea of morning tubs and from the first day, I have loved it. I love that it gives students a relaxing way of moving into the school day without them having to hit the books right away by doing board work or a morning tasks. It also gives them time to work with their classmates and say their hellos and talk what has happened since the last time they were together.
If you are new to morning tubs, let me explain what they are. I have six different tubs that I use with activities that are fun and that can be put away quickly. They are activities that students can do together. Some of the bins that I have had so far are:
1. Tinker Toys: These old fashioned fun building toys are a hit with my students I got the plastic version which allows them to bend the rods. This is a current class favorite.
2. Legos: Legos are a staple in my bins. They are fun and can be turned into anything. Also, they can be used with task cards or even S.T.E.M. challenges to shake it up from time to time and add more structure.
3. Play-doh: Play-doh is fun and can also build hand coordination at the same time. Students always love Play-doh.
4. Structures Building Blocks: These are 1x4 wooden planks that can be used to build. Kids love to use these to build towers as high as they can. They love to build lots of different things with these.
5. Linking Cubes: Linking cubes aren't just for math. My students turn these blocks into creations. One little girl in my class even made her own pair of glasses...I call that ingenuity!
6. Games: I like using games like Checkers or dominoes or some of those mind games. While some of those are only two player games, students don't seem to mind teaming up or waiting for a turn.
Some other ideas I would love to try are:
1. A bunch of felt food and play money
2. A collection of Mr. Potato heads with accessories
3. A themed Play-doh box with things like scented play-doh for making cookies
4. Other building equipment
5. Crayons and coloring books
6. Play Mobile sets
7. Felts
Here are some ideas for easy set up. I started out by reading this post from the Brown Bag Teacher and adapted some of the ideas to fit my needs.
Our morning bell rings at 5 minutes before 8. That is when students are allowed to come inside the classroom in the morning. Our start time is 8. I give students from 7:55 to 8:07 for morning tubs. It's a short time, but I do feel that it makes a difference in how my classroom runs in the mornings. It feels like an easier and more relaxed start to the day. At 8:07, I tell my students to clean up their tubs. They have strictly two minutes to get things cleaned up and be on the rug for morning meeting. If they do not meet that expectation, they will lose out on tubs the following day.
At the beginning of the year, I assigned tubs for each day. I think that is best, even though I have not kept up with that recently. Now students go to whichever tub they want. I find that
it gives a great variety to have students rotate through the tubs with a specific group of people each day. About once a month, my goal was to change out most of the tub activities and also change the groups up so the students get a chance to work with different classmates. I will admit, I have not made that happen. This is my first year and I am still learning what works and what doesn't. Don't be afraid to try different things.
For storage, I keep my tubs on a plastic bookshelf inside a wardrobe-type closet at the back of my room. The tubs I use are Sterilite tubs that I picked up at Wal*Mart. They are similar to this, but I don't see the shoe box size like I got. I put labels on the front of each of my tubs with a number. Students are expected to place the bins back in order on the shelf after cleaning up.
For my labels, I created my own and if you love them as much as I do, you can find there here in my TPT store.
If I were to give you one piece of advice for using morning tubs, it would be change the activities regularly, at least one time per month to keep the students interested.
If you aren't loving your morning routine, I would suggest that you give morning tubs a try. If you have any ideas for what you would put in the bins, leave a comment below.
