Morning Tubs and Even a Fluency Tub

Happy Friday! 

This year our schedule changed in the mornings so that students come to my room before choosing to go to breakfast. As soon as I found that out, I began considering what I could have students working on. My principal kindly told me that "work time" was probably out or all students would be choosing to go to breakfast. Ha!

Then I saw the idea for morning tubs which I'm hearing a lot about now, so I know there are probably a lot of great ideas out there of what you can use as morning tubs. 

Each morning when the kids get off the bus (8:10), we meet in the gym to say our pledges and acknowledge birthdays, etc. Then we head to our classrooms. My students make their lunch choice and check their GO (Getting Organized) Books. Then they either head to breakfast or start on morning tubs.

For now, I have been setting the assigned tub on a group of desks and rotating them daily. Each week I set out different tubs or go back to ones we have used in previous weeks.

Some of the ones we've used so far: Play-doh, Legos, how-to drawing books, lacing beads, and my Fluency Tub (more info below). 

Some things I plan to use: Letter tiles and/or magnets, base 10 blocks, math wraps, puzzles, whiteboards, etc. Basically anything they can play, build, or do that will get their little minds engaged.

I love this time! 

The students are excited to get to class and hurry back from breakfast. It is fun to see what they create, build, or draw. I've overheard a lot of good conversations and problem solving. I have time to take care of my lunch count and even pull a kiddo aside to talk to them or do a quick fluency check. 

I play my "Rise and Shine" song at 8:30 and we gather on the rug for Morning Meeting. 

I was a little worried that the "Fluency Tub" wouldn't be as popular when I introduced it this week, but they are LOVING it. 

Here's a video on what is inside the tub (if it won't play for you, try checking it out on Facebook):

The favorite from the fluency tub is definitely the "I have…who has…?" game--which is fantastic because as you probably know I have a lot of them! :-)

This particular one is the high-frequency words from our Reading Wonders unit.

If you need some "I have…who has…?" games, check out our TPT store. We have several that cover a lot of grade levels and phonics skills (math too). There's even some freebies to get you started!

I'm pretty excited to know that I should never run out of morning tub ideas they love. :-)

Have a great weekend!

P.S. Trying the embed video from FB here: