Kindergarten Morning Tubs: An Explanation

Kindergarten Morning Tubs are play-based, standards-aligned, meaningful activities that get kids excited to come to school, allow the teacher to take care of the morning tasks of greeting students, communicating with parents, checking folders, collecting homework, doing lunch count, attendance, and bathroom procedures, etc. while the class is actively engaged. Furthermore, Morning Tubs help reduce the length of morning routine, encourage problem solving and critical thinking, allow kids to explore, communicate, and collaborate. Additionally, they allow time for those extremely important fine motor and sensory activities. Sounds great, right?

What if we all rethink how we start our mornings with students?

In 2018, I resigned from my job where I had taught Kindergarten in a Title 1 school for 14 years. I took a job in a new town. I was still teaching Kindergarten in a title one school, but things were different. The traditional morning worksheets were not the way to start our day. I needed to get these kids excited to come to school every day. It was time to figure out how to give them a reason to WANT to be there first thing in the morning. Besides all of that, I also noticed that their fine motor skills were lacking. Big time. Many of them were still holding their pencils in a fist grasp. In fact, even if they actually were excited to do those worksheets, many of them couldn’t do them independently. It became so important to somehow incorporate fine motor activities into my day.

Enter Kindergarten Morning Tubs

I began creating hands-on, standards based, fun and engaging activities that also incorporated fine motor skills. The kids were loving morning tubs, and I was loving how excited and engaged they were!

Student engagement=time for me to get my morning tasks accomplished!

I began sharing my Morning Tub ideas on my Instagram Page. As a result, teachers were excited and eager to learn more! However, I was creating and finding all of the materials myself. This can be huge challenge for many teachers who don’t have the ability to create their own digital resources and extremely time-consuming when you’re searching for all of the supplies.

Adam Dovico and Morning Choice

I had seen my good friend, Adam Dovico, present on a similar concept called “Morning Choice“. In his presentation, he proposed shifting from traditional morning work, to morning choice. This would allow students to collaborate, create, play, and problem solve through games, art, STEM and more. Morning Tubs followed the same principles as Morning Choice which naturally lead us to have a conversation about the topic.

We have done all the prep work for you!

Adam and I, along with our friends Jose and Shawn, had this conversation over dinner one night. What if teachers didn’t have to do the shopping, creating, and searching? What if EVERYTHING you need to implement Morning Tubs in your classroom was all included and prepped, and in a box that was shipped right to you?

Kindergarten Morning Tubs are Here!

It was then that we decided to create our first Morning Tub set! Our Winter Morning Tubs include 10 Kindergarten standards-based activities (5 ELA and 5 Math) with all the materials included. It also includes suggestions on how to differentiate the activities! Furthermore, we didn’t forget about those important motor skill activities!! We have integrated many fine motor skills throughout the tubs!

Make the Shift!

We have loved seeing Kindergarten teachers make such significant and far-reaching changes in their daily routine! It has been said that the most dangerous phrase in our language is “We’ve always done it that way.” We challenge you to rethink one of the most traditional routines we have in schools today. Make that shift to Morning Tubs!