Why A Morning Work Alternative?
What Are the Procedures of a Morning Work Alternative?
When the timer goes off, I set the timer again for 2 minutes. Students know they have to work together as a team to clean up and be on the carpet by the end of the 2 minutes. If a table has not synergized, they lose the privilege of participating in morning tubs the next day. Three weeks in, this has never happened. My friends really treasure Morning Tubs.
What is the Teacher Doing During Morning Tubs?
Great question! During morning tubs, I always take Attendance on Infinite Campus and check the turn-it-in tray. Earlier in January when first introducing morning tubs, I spent a lot of time playing with my friends modeling kind social interactions. Now, if specifically asked or needed, I will join our morning-tub time, which I love doing. BUT 8 minutes, is just the right amount of time I need to read with a friend. My friends LOVE getting to new reading levels and it’s been a wonderful structure to encourage me to read with a friend each morning.
What Have Been the Benefits of Doing Morning Work Alternatives?
- My friends have started thinking outside the box with the materials. Base 10 pieces are logs and phonics dominoes are a card tower. All the ways they want to play with reading and math manipualtives during reading and math, they now have a devoted time to do so.
- Student walk in the door excited to get started. Morning tubs have minimized our morning routine. Students don’t want to waste any time making lunch choices, putting away their folders, or stowing their backpacks because they know their time is already limited.
- After playing and talking and laughing, my friends come to the carpet and are ready to learn. Our first Daily 5 choices have been out-of-the-world lately.
- We’ve become a *little* more flexible. While I love morning tubs (and my 1st graders do too), sometimes it isn’t possible. We need to start early or there has been a change in the schedule. When that happens, we’ve learned to say – “Oh well!” It’s a special treat when morning tubs happen, but not expected.
Where Do I Get the Tubs?
Several years ago I feel in love with this clip top Sterilite tubs. They make the PERFECT storage container…so much so that I wrote a whole post about them here. I use these medium clip-top bins for morning tub bins. They are much smaller than the large bins and SUPER deep. They are perfect for storing lots of manipualtives, cards, or materials. You can snag the labels FREE here.
What’s In Our Morning Tubs?
Our morning tubs are filled with lots of manipualtives (reading and math). While students are ‘playing’, they are also engaging with academic tools in a non-threatening way. They have the chance to explore new words with our phonics dice, they can make silly sentences with our sentence puzzles, create words with our letter tiles, conjure difficult math problems with the base ten pieces, and create 16-sided shapes with our geoboards.
Through Donors Choose I requested this low shelf that stores our morning tubs and indoor recess items. I love having one space where the bins are so students can grab them and go!
We have A LOT of building resources in our tubs. While this can quickly branch into “indoor recess” type of material, students still don’t have full recess range of freedoms. Additionally, when students build, create, and collaborate they are active, talking, and building relationships. We love Tinker Toys because we can create spinning and moving machines!
Interlox are also a class favorite. At first my friends struggled with them because their natural reaction is to build up. Students quickly learn that if they only build up, their towers will topple. By building wide and creating a strong base, students learn that they can create intricate buildings with these tools!
MagnaTiles are THE favorite material in our morning tubs. These magnetic building blocks are amazing and students can create almost anything they want. From 2D shapes to mazes to 3D masterpieces, MagnaTiles are pretty awesome! With that said, they are incredibly expensive (thanks, Donors Choose!) and they are a beast to clean-up. Still, childhood joy and excitement wins, so the MagnaTiles stay!
My 1st graders also LOVE Story Cubes. Each set of cubes has a different theme (verbs, ways to move, places to visit). Students role 2-3 of the dice and combine them into a story. These dice are perfect for adding excitement to writing and build a nice bridge to work on writing!
Reuse, Reuse, Reuse
While our classroom has been blessed with lots of Morning Tub choices from Donors Choose, yard sales, and family donations, I routinely use materials I am also using for reading and math. Just starting with Morning Tubs? Check out some of my go-to tub items! 
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Hi Catherine, I couldn't agree with you more! I started something similar last year in my 1st grade classroom and also noticed a big shift. 🙂 You can take a peek on my blog if you like http://mrswintersbliss.blogspot.com/2015/05/social-time.html Christina
Your ideas brighten my path and confirm my instincts. Thanks
I've been doing something similar in my k classroom. We call it Arrival Activities. I change up the tubs at each table each day so they always have something new to explore and create and do after checking in with me first thing. It gives me a valuable 5-10 minutes to take attendance, check folders, etc … the children LOVE it! They learn to share, to create, to try new things, to make connections, to manage impulsivity, and to clean up. Lots of STEM and maker products or art materials change up the routine. So much independent learning happens during this time!
Love this post! We always begin our day with share circle, which I love, but my kids can get a little chatty in the time before we start. This is a great idea to fill those few minutes of downtime! I appreciate the Amazon links and am hoping you could provide a few more for the other things we see in the pictures (particularly the other phonics materials).
Thank you so much for this. I love this idea. Like you have a class that struggles with social skills. It is probably my toughest group ever. I am constantly needing to change up the way things are done. I am hoping that I can incorporate this into my classroom. I have been sharing your blog with my team and have finally gotten them to start thinking about things differently.Your post on Guided Math was the subject of discussion in one of our grade level meetings a few weeks ago. You have really been valuable in helping me to show my other first grade teachers the importance of small groups, and not just in reading. I will also be sharing this idea with them. Thanks so much for all of the hard work that you do and sharing with us.
Which size Sterilite tub did you use for these? I have your math centers and bought those same tubs you use… now I want these too! I never thought I'd be teaching first grade, but your blog has really helped guide me.
I have been doing this for two weeks now (since I saw your post on Instagram). I love it and so do my 3rd graders. I find it is a great way to start our day. Thank you for the great idea!
Jumping in here because I just started morning tubs this week. I explained to students that each morning there would be a new tub at their table. I am just rotating tubs at this point. We went over expectations- staying at your table, sharing materials, cleaning up when the timer goes off, etc. and they caught on right away!
In hindsight I would probably model clean-up a little more explicity- not tossing dominoes into the bin from three desks away, checking the floor, putting things away neatly, etc. 😉 I will probably model this tomorrow!
Just to follow up, we have been doing "morning tubs" for two days now. My kids love it! They unpack very quickly now too- I had issues with some friends chatting by the cubbies instead of unpacking. They are now the first ones unpacked and ready to start the day. 😉 Choices this week are pattern blocks, dominoes, geoboards, alphabet lacing beads, etc.
Thank you so much for sharing! We love this new start to our day.
I love the science ideas! When we did our solids/liquids unit earlier in the year, my students LOVED exploring small solids (rice, cornmeal, different types of beans) and bottles of liquids with varying viscosity. I appreciate the book recommendation too!
I would love to try this in my classroom! How did you introduce this to the students? Did you just leave out a bin on each group's desk and tell them to have at it? Hah I can just picture my students walking in and wondering what to do. Any tips I would greatly appreciate!
Thanks!
Christy
I love your schedule, Mrs. Wyman. It sounds like your friends have a lot to look forward to!
Hi Katherine! Thanks so much for the note. Like you, it's a quick turn around but after we practiced, it really does work. After the first day, groups do choose their own bins but can only do each bin once a week…so very structured choice. 🙂
I am going to try this! We have an 8:15 arrival and we have to be ready to switch for reading groups at 8:30. I've been looking for something meaningful to fill the time and this sounds perfect.
Just so I understand correctly- each group chooses a new tub each day?
Catherine- This is great! When you posted about it on Facebook, I was immediately intrigued! I have a busy and very social group this year, and morning work isn't cutting it. I am both encouraged and inspired by this! Thanks for the post and expanding on the why of it!
Hooray for you for kicking the Morning Work habit! 🙂 Kids really need some settle in/social time. They do so much work during the day, don't they? That said, it doesn't mean that this time can't still be powerful. Your morning tubs look great! I rotate manipulatives, like Cuisenaire Rods, tangrams, small waffle blocks on M/W with book tubs (Todd Parr books, non-fiction, atlases and dictionaries (YUP!) on T/Th. Fridays are SciFri, with some kind of science inquiry/exploration that doesn't need any setup. They just jump in! (Ideas often come from The Curious Kid's Science Book by Asia Citro). Happy exploring!