So, you’ve decided that you want to use morning tubs! Yay! But, what’s next? Now, you are probably wondering how to set-up your activities. Your Morning Tub Organization will really depend on you, your students, and your classroom.
Don’t worry! I’ve helped other teachers set-up morning tubs and have a few suggestions on the things that have worked in their classrooms and in my own room.
What You'll Find On This Page
Morning Tub Organization:
Preparing Morning Tubs
When preparing your morning tubs, I highly recommend that you print the activities on card stock. If you don’t have Instant Ink yet, you may want to check into it.
It saves me money and my printer ink is shipped to my door. I don’t have to run to the store late at night when I’m out of ink anymore!
I also recommend that you laminate the activities. This will help make all of the parts and pieces more durable and last longer.
After laminating, I use a paper cutter to cut all of the pieces a part. Just like any hands-on activity, it will take a little bit of time and work to prepare your morning tubs.
But once everything is prepped, you will be able to use these activities year after year.
Storing Morning Tubs
You will have to determine how to store your morning tubs depending on the storage space in your classroom.
Personally, I like to use shoe box plastic containers so I can put all of the supplies (such as dice, dry erase markers, counters, and other manipulatives) that my students will need with the activity.
Then, I put the shoe box containers on a bookshelf or on top of my students’ cubbies so that they can easily access them in the morning.
If you don’t have the room to store containers that are the size of a shoe box, many of the activities can fit into pencil boxes. I have also used the boxes that my ink is shipped in from Instant Ink.
For the activities are full size sheets of paper, you can print two sheets on one piece of paper as an option too.
When I was an RTI coordinator and only had a small office, I used a rolling cart. You can make it work in your space!
Labeling Morning Tubs
For my morning tubs, I simply label each one with a number. You can also use the name of the activity, the skill, or even the standard. Click HERE to get a copy of the labels that I use for my morning tubs.
I hope that these suggestions will help with your Morning Tub Organization. If you have questions or need more suggestions, please let a comment below and I will be happy to help.
More About Morning Tubs:
You May Also Like These Back to School Morning Tubs:
If you are looking for a set of activities to get you started using morning tubs this school year, grab this set of 20 Back to School Morning Tubs for Kindergarten.
Click on the link or picture to learn more about the literacy and match activities that are included in this bundle!
Joanna
Saturday 15th of July 2023
I love this idea but am curious on how many morning tubs to set up per day. How many different morning tubs do you need per theme? Also, how best do you introduce it to your students? Thanks so much, Joanna
ABC's of Literacy
Wednesday 19th of July 2023
Great questions, Joanna! The number of morning tubs that I set up usually depends on my class. In the past, I've had one morning tub for every student so they could work independently. I've also had as few as 10-15 so they could work in pairs or a small group.
I have 10 - 20 activities per theme. Sometimes I include some non-themed activities if there are certain skills that my students need to practice at that time.
For some activities that I know my students know how to do, I will introduce them as a whole group. I will simply go over how to use the activities. For new activities that they have never done before, I will introduce them during my small groups. Hope this helps! Please let me know if you have any other questions!