In a previous post, I mentioned that I have a running list of the morning tubs I’ve done so far this year. I’m hoping that by keeping a list on my computer, it will make getting tubs ready easier/faster next year. Will I do all the exact same tubs next year? Probably not. There were definitely some tubs that were not the best…too much work for me or too much for the kiddos. But by having a list pre-made of ideas it should make the planning portion of morning tubs much easier (I have spent soooo many hours on Pinterest looking up ideas and stalking other teachers Instagram/blogs for inspiration).
So…my favourite thing to find on all those Pinterest posts and other teachers blogs? Big ol’ lists of ideas!! My list I have on my computer is pretty darn boring…so I’ll try to make this a little more exciting and add some pictures (because who doesn’t love pictures?!).
My Morning Tubs so far this year…
September 11
- Magna formers
- Pompom and tweezers
- Foam 3D shapes
- Pattern blocks
- Large plus plus
- Dominoes
September 19
- Dienes blocks (wooden)
- White boards
- Magnet wands and foam magnet blocks
- Loose parts faces
- Hand tongs and plastic acorns
- Tinker toys
September 25
- Lacing cards
- Small stacking cups
- Large wooden beads
- HWT letters and plastic leaves/acorns
- Hole punching
- Wood tree blocks (ps I cut all those blocks myself!! With “adult” supervision)
October 27
- Calming bottles
- Tennis ball monsters
- Small stacking cups/popsicle sticks
- Magna doodle
- Gourds/small pumpkins and magnifying glasses
October 10
- Mini erasers and names
- Magnatiles
- Pattern blocks and patterns
- Loose part faces
- Straws and scissors
Link to Face Play Doh mats
October 16
- Rangoli designs
- Leaf rubbing
- Straw pieces and pipe cleaners
- Linking popsicle sticks
- Foam blocks and tongs
- Gourds and balance scales
Rangoli Designs PDF
October 23
- Golf tees, tongs, and ping pong balls
- Flies and tweezers (string web in basket)
- Letter hunt bin (coloured macaroni)
- Halloween jewels and HWT shapes
- Flies, tweezers, and names
- Letter puzzles
October 30
- Halloween I Spy
- Jack O’Lantern Faces (play doh)
- Letter hunt (sensory bin)
- Halloween designs
- Pom pom monsters & dice
- 5 Little Pumpkins sitting on the gate STEM
Blank Pumpkin mats PDF
November 8
- Geoboards
- Poppy designs
- Fancy scissors/paper punches
- ABC I spy bottles
- Small plus plus
- Dominoes
Link to Geoboard task cards
November 20
- Letter shapes
- Lego Letters
- Geoboard letters
- Lego avatars
- Bead string patterns
- Wiki Stix numbers
Link to Lego Avatar
So, I totally had other pictures of kids making words and shapes, but I couldn’t pass up sharing this little Kindersmartens word creation…hehe
Also, here’s the link for the lego letters!
November 30
- Eraser trees
- I spy letter ornaments
- Magnaformers and bells
- Ornaments on tee trees
- Dreidels and timers
- Holiday pokey pins
Link to Holiday Pokey Pink
Big shout out to my sister Jen, who hauled a billion bags of mini erasers in her luggage when she came back from visiting our parents in California! Thanks Jenny!
December 11
- Christmas pattern blocks
- I Spy bin
- Candy Cane letter writing
- Loose part trees
- Kwanzaa bead patterns
- Kwanzaa Mkeka designs
Link to Ornament Letters
January 8
- Straws and connectors
- Wooden Snowflakes with gems
- Winter loose part designs
- Geoboard snowflakes
- Mitten matching (upper and lower case letters)
- Snow letter search
Link to Mitten Matching Letters and Snowflakes with letter sounds
January 17
- Gears
- Pom Poms, Gator grips, dice
- Letter sequence mittens (clothes line)
- Roll a snowman
- Winter words writing on white boards
- Snow flake # building
Link to Winter Words (bonus: they’re free!)
January 26
- Build a bridge for the gingerbread man
- Ginger bread man loose parts
- Gingerbread letter writing (in salt)
- Dominoes
- Pokey pin
- Gingerbread letter sound matching
Link to Gingerbread Letter Sound Match
February 7
- Snap cubes
- Letter hunt sensory bin(white rice and coloured letter noodles) with wipe off recording sheet
- Valentine designs with loose parts
- Tweezer and heart count in sensory bin (black beans)
- Roll and cover hearts (2 dice)
- Valentine eraser patterns
I have to admit, these pictures are from last year (when I used these for math centres), I know I took pictures this year but for the life of me I can’t find them!
February 15
- Valentine words with lower case letter magnets
- Chinese New Year sensory bin (with chop sticks and pompoms)
- Roll to 100
- Chinese New Year writing trays (words and letters)
- Chinese New Year loose part designs
- 100 stacking cups
-
Please excuse the “fogginess” of these pictures…I didn’t realize my lens was so smudgy!
February 28
- Word puzzles
- Racing readers
- Peg boards
- Number gators
- Nuts and bolts
- Shape designs
I will do another post, perhaps near the end of the school year (assuming I’m still on the blogging train) with the rest of the tubs I do for the year! I plan to do post that focus a little more of specific tubs, like the ones that are “themed” (Valentine’s day, Halloween, etc.), it just may take me a while to get to those.
One more thing… I’ve kind of developed a bit of a rule (not necessarily on purpose, more like a happy accident) when creating my tubs. When I plan my upcoming tubs I try to make sure I have at least one of the following:
- 2 literacy based activities
- 2 numeracy based activities
- 1 STEM type of activity
- 1 Creative/design activity
That being said, it isn’t a hard and fast rule (there are times when the tubs are way more literacy than numeracy for example). Tis’ merely a guideline…
Thanks for reading! Please feel free to comment below if you have any questions about what I’ve posted today. I’m always happy to share my ideas and any resources I can, because ya’ know, sharing is caring 🙂
Kindersmartens 
Wow! I am so inspired by your morning tubs. The amount of time, effort and planning it must take to pull these off is huge. Kudos to you super star Kinder teacher!
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Thanks Ashley!! The planning is getting easier the more I do it.
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Love!
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I am so lucky to teach next to you Sarah! Your creativity and ingenuity are truly inspirational, and to top it off, you share your ideas freely and generously. Your students (and the K team) are so fortunate to have you ❤️
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You’re so sweet ❤️ thank YOU for being my sounding board and sharing your ideas with me! I think our KTeam is pretty awesome 👏
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Hi! I’ve seen your morning tubs on FB and loved them all! I’ve been doing fine motor activities for when students arrive while I am checking kids in, asking them what they want for lunch and dealing with lunch cards. However, every year that I’ve been doing them, the kids get so loud and some just talk and never really do anything else, even when I have set rules. I believe that they need to socialize and share with one another what they did the night/weekend before, but I want them to also get something out of the activities. How do you keep your students on task with morning tubs?
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Hi Lee Ann – it’s definitely a struggle! Some activities are so exciting that the kids can’t help themselves.
I agree with you about wanting them to be sharing. I make a point of praising kids when I hear them discussing their learning or asking their friends for help/suggestions. I believe the tubs are an important part of helping kids develop their oral language skills (and English language skills – many of my kids are ELL), but managing the volume can be challenging. We spend a lot of time talking about talking 🤣 and demonstrating which volumes are appropriate. That being said, my class always tends to be a bit louder than my teaching partners, because I’m a loud person!
During morning tubs I find it’s usually one or two students who are the loud ones that tend to get everyone else going. I will often pull those kids aside and speak to them about how loud they are. I also give them a warning, that if they can’t keep their voices at a reasonable level, they will miss out on part of morning tubs. For 85% of my kids, it works. Those that can’t keep a reasonable voice (talking not shouting), will sit out for a couple of minutes and then have an opportunity to try again. If they continue to be loud, they are done with tubs for the day and go sit at our rug and read a book. I also set the groups my students are in for their tub rotations. I try to make sure the divide up the loud ones 🤣, which sometimes is easier said than done. I find if the whole class is getting rowdy, it’s usually a sign that it’s time to put tubs away. If our tub time was shorter than normal because of volume, I’ll let the students know and then remind them the next day when we are doing tubs.
In all honesty, some days are easier than others to keep the kids on task. I try to have really engaging activities, but not all of them are going to be engaging to every child. I had one little this year that it didn’t matter what tub he was at, he wandered off to other tubs! I spent the entire year redirecting him back to his tub 🤦🏽♀️.
There’s no perfect answer, just a lot of redirecting and modelling.
Hope that was helpful!
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