If the start of your school day is as crazy as mine, I know how stressful it can be! Between parents who have questions, students who need immediate attention, or a call from the front office, it’s hard to split your attention in 5 different ways AND still be in charge of your class! That’s where Morning Work Tubs come in!
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Using Morning Work Tubs
Teach your students first thing in the morning to hang their backpacks, put their lunchbox away, and grab a morning tub! The management is up to you however, whether you want to assign partners to specific tubs or let your students choose. All the skills are perfect for beginning of the year kindergarteners and they can work on everything independently, giving you time to focus your attention on other needs!
Setting Up Morning Work Tubs
I like to place all the materials for each activity in a tub or tray. The Target Dollar Spot always has fun colorful tubs or trays that work perfectly. I also print each activity on card stock paper so it is thicker and more durable. After that, you will also need to laminate the activities so they can be used over and over again.
Other helpful materials:
To make your morning work more hands-on and engaging, I created several morning work tubs that incorporate manipulatives to make the learning fun! These items include things you most likely already have in your classroom for instance, or can be purchased pretty inexpensively.
- dry-erase markers
- colorful magnet letters
- Velcro dots
- Colored pom-poms
- play-doh
- clothespins
- pipe-cleaners
- plastic buttons
- plastic links
- seasonal manipulatives
- dice
- dominoes
- unifix cubes
- base-ten blocks
Let’s take a look at some of my favorite morning work tub ideas!
Literacy Tubs
Name Writing Practice
For obvious reasons, name writing is a super important skill for your kindergarteners, so we try anything to make it fun! This morning work tub is always a favorite! Have your students use a dry-erase marker to practice writing their names and their classmates’ names. I have an editable document that allows me to type each student’s name to personalize for my class. You can have your students use magnet letters or other manipulatives to work on spelling their name as well!
Fine Motor Practice
Have your students practice the alphabet while strengthening their fine motor muscles! They can use mini pom-poms or play-doh to form each letter. I found these awesome plastic tweezers at the Dollar Tree, perfect for growing those teeny fine-motor finger muscles!
Letter Tracing and Writing Practice
Another fun idea is to have your students practice writing the uppercase & lowercase letters with dry-erase markers. They can also use different colors to differentiate between the upper and lowercase letters.
Math Tubs:
As the year progresses, so do your students’ needs! Make sure you are switching out your tubs periodically to keep up excitement and motivation.
Morning Work Tubs for You!
If you are interested in ready-to-go tubs for the ENTIRE year, check out my Morning Work Tubs Bundle! It includes tubs for the beginning, middle & end of the year. Check out my Morning Work Tubs in my shop below!
