Using Morning Tubs in Your Homeschool Routine: Creative Ideas for Maximum Value

Using Morning Tubs in Your Homeschool Routine: Creative Ideas for Maximum Value

Morning tubs aren’t just for traditional classrooms—they can be a game-changer for your homeschool! These versatile, hands-on activities are perfect for engaging your kids at the start of the day, keeping learning fun and flexible. If you’ve never used morning tubs before, let me show you how they can become one of your favorite tools in homeschooling, especially when you’re looking for ways to reuse resources for maximum value.

What Are Morning Tubs?

Morning tubs are sets of activities designed to kick off the day with engaging, meaningful tasks. They’re often hands-on and cover a range of subjects like math, reading, writing, or fine motor skills. Instead of jumping straight into formal lessons, kids ease into the day with these enjoyable activities.

 The 2nd Grade Morning Work Tubs for February from my Teachers Pay Teachers store is a great example—they’re filled with themed activities that are educational and fun!

Why Use Morning Tubs in Your Homeschool?

Here are some reasons why morning tubs are a perfect fit for homeschooling:

1. Independent Work Time: While your kids are busy with morning tubs, you can take a few moments to prepare for the day or work one-on-one with another child.
2. Flexible Learning: Morning tubs can be tailored to your family’s schedule and educational goals, whether you want to focus on math, literacy, or fine motor skills.
3. Reusable Resources: The activities in these tubs can be used multiple times and in different ways, making them an excellent investment.

How to Use Morning Tubs at Home

Here are several ideas for incorporating morning tubs into your homeschool routine:

1. Start the Day with Fun Learning Begin your day with morning tubs to set a positive tone. The February-themed tubs include activities like sorting, matching, and problem-solving—all designed to build foundational skills while feeling like play.

2. Pair with Themed Learning Units If your February lessons include topics like winter, Valentine’s Day, or kindness, use the tubs as an extension. For example, math activities from the tubs could reinforce counting or pattern-making, tying directly into seasonal themes.

3. Rotate for Multi-Use Don’t use all the activities at once! Rotate them weekly to keep things fresh. What’s great about these tubs is that they’re reusable year after year, so the activities can reappear in future lessons for reinforcement or as a fun review.

4. Use for Transition Times Morning tubs are ideal for filling gaps in your schedule. If you’re transitioning between subjects or need to keep one child busy while helping another, these tubs are a lifesaver.

5. Incorporate with Siblings Morning tubs aren’t just for one child! Many activities can be adapted for different ages. Younger kids can join in with simplified tasks, while older siblings might enjoy “helping” by explaining concepts.

6. Supplement with Family Challenges Turn the activities into mini-competitions or family challenges. For example, who can finish the math puzzle fastest? This adds an element of excitement and encourages critical thinking.

Maximize the Value of Morning Tubs

One of the best things about morning tubs is their reusability. Here’s how to make the most of them:

• Laminate Activities: Laminating task cards or sheets ensures they’ll last longer. Use dry-erase markers to make them reusable.
• Store for Future Use: Pack tubs away after February and bring them out the next year for a fresh start.
• Repurpose for Other Subjects: Many activities, like matching or puzzles, can be repurposed for a variety of subjects, from science vocabulary to geography.

Ready to Get Started?

If you’re excited to bring morning tubs into your homeschool, check out my Morning Tubs on Teachers Pay Teachers. They’re packed with fun, seasonal activities that you can use again and again. Whether you’re new to morning tubs or looking for fresh ideas, these resources are sure to add joy and flexibility to your homeschooling days.

Do you use morning tubs in your homeschool? I’d love to hear your favorite ideas or adaptations in the comments below!

Fall in Love with Math and Literacy Center Time

Do you struggle with center time? Using centers can be the most rewarding time of the day... but not when you have to spend precious hours each week prepping and getting ready for the centers. 

Planning and preparing for math or literacy stations can sometimes consume more time than the actual execution of the centers.

Choosing five centers and KEEPING those five centers all year long will be a huge time-saver. Using NO PREP and LOW PREP activities will save you even more time.

Read this blog post about how to keep literacy centers fun, simple, and easy with just five centers all year long.

This same idea can be used in math centers, no matter what skill or concept you teach.

Click here to read a blog post about math centers.

In the blog posts, I share how I found that five centers in math and five centers in language arts worked best for me. (Believe me; I tried several methods and strategies before I realized I was just making things too hard!)

In addition to using my no-prep centers, I tried to use things already in my classroom. This saved me both time and money.

Read this blog post about things you probably already have in your classroom to use in math and literacy centers.

You can find these forever freebies in my TpT store.

FREE Math Center Activity

FREE Literacy Center Activity

Use these FREE Center Labels to designate your centers in your classroom.

Click here to sign up for my emails and get a set of FREE no-prep math and literacy centers to try out in your classroom.

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Math Centers that Are Easy to Plan, Organize, and Prepare

Are you looking for centers that are easy to plan, organize, and prepare?  

Keep reading to find math centers you can use all year in your classroom.  

Your life is about to get so much easier!

Choosing to keep the same centers all year long will lessen the amount of time you are spending to get the centers ready for students.  

Here are five centers to use in your classroom all year long.

1)  Technology

Use the technology that is available to you.  Whether this is a group of computers in your classrooms, a class set of Chromebooks or iPads, or something else, there is always a choice of things to use in this center.  You can use digital task cards or interactive games for students to practice current math skills or to review past math skills.

2)  Working with Numbers

This unit will work with any activity that involves numbers.  Include math games, activities, or worksheets in this center.  Using one of the No Prep math activities in this unit makes it super easy to prepare!

3)  Fact Fluency

It doesn't matter what grade level you teach, there is always fact fluency students need to practice.  Addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division need practice daily for students to become fluent.  Having a dedicated center will help students accomplish that goal, and it builds a foundation for everything else.  Games such as Bump, worksheets manipulatives, and other activities are good choices to add to this center all year.

4)  Writing/Word Work

This math center is the perfect place to add some writing aspects to your math routine.  Students can write the steps to tell how to solve math problems, complete word problems, practice writing numbers, do constructed math problems, and more.  Writing is important for math, so make sure that you include it.

5)  Math Games

Students love games.  I feel strongly about using games to learn.  Adding a play factor always helps students improve while they enjoy the activity.  Add board games that are already in your classroom.  Search the Internet for fun math games using a deck of playing cards.  Add math task cards to a Candy Land board, and watch how excited your students are to play.  

Related Post:  Keeping Literacy Centers Simple, Easy, and Fun

See more:

2nd Grade No Prep Math Centers  

3rd Grade No Prep Math Centers  

4th Grade No Prep Math Centers

How do math centers look in your classroom?  Are they working for you?  Leave a comment below and tell me.

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How Centers Transformed My Fourth Grade Classroom.

There was never a time when I didn't use centers.  Using centers in the classroom made sense to me from pre-k to kindergarten and then on to first and finally second grades.  There were so many benefits to using centers in the classroom!  One day, my principal then told me that she was moving me to fourth grade.  WH-A-A-A-A-T??????

I was very happy and content in the primary grades.  I had plenty of reasons to try and convince her that I didn't belong in upper elementary.  

• I rarely used worksheets.
• I taught whole lessons that were short and to the point.
• I taught to my students' needs in small groups.
• I used centers All. Day. Long!!

(I thought for sure that the last one would change her mind!!)

She just smiled at me and said, "That's EXACTLY why I am moving you!  I want the fourth graders to have just as much fun as your second grade students do!"

I spent the summer worrying. HOW could I replicate what I had always done in the lower grades for older students?

It turned out that it wasn't hard at all.

In fact, it was magical!

Grab FREE math and literacy centers by clicking HERE!

No Prep Centers

I don't enjoy spending tons of time planning and writing lesson plans for someone else.  Teachers know what we are doing, right?

I studied the standards for 4th grade in both math and literacy and created a curriculum map and planned out my year.  (YES!  I loosely planned the entire year, and it saved me SO. MUCH. TIME!)

After I had my lesson plan calendar for the entire year in hand, I created centers that I could just print and go.

The students loved them, and they were sooooooo easy for me!

I planned out five literacy stations and five math stations I would use each week ALL YEAR LONG!

Instead of constantly coming up with new centers, I only had to change the activities.

It was SO easy!!  

Daily Math Spirals

Each day before our daily focus in math, we completed five questions in a spiral.  These five questions covered the five big domains in Common Core.  By focusing on just these five, students were getting a review, present learning, and a preview of things to come.

By adding the preview component, I was able to do a mini lesson on the same standard/concept for 20 days.  By the time we actually reached that concept in our curriculum map, the students had been exposed to it so many times that it was a breeze to tighten down the learning!

I projected this math spiral on my big screen at the beginning of math class, and students completed the questions in a spiral notebook.  Again, there was no prep on my part with BIG results for the students.

We kept it fresh by sometimes working through the questions as a whole group, in small groups, with partners, or independently.

It was easy for me to print one page of questions and use in small groups when needed.

Using the daily math spirals allowed me to add a variety of activities to my math centers because I knew the students had already had exposure to the concepts.

You can find daily math spirals in my TpT store for second grade, third grade, and fourth grade.  

Centers, Centers, Centers

Instead of planning elaborate centers, I kept things very easy.  I used my NO PREP math centers and my NO PREP literacy centers and then filled in with things I already had in my classroom!

When the school became 1:1 in technology with Chromebooks, I added digital activities to the mix.

My classroom was mostly a full day of centers.

For early finishers, I had them go to a center activity.

For small groups,  I pulled a center activity that students had already used from my no prep activities or they played a game that was used during center time.

For whole group, I used a center activity for the entire class as a teaching tool.  Turn it into a game, and change the entire dynamics!

These center activities were an important part of our day.

The Magic of Centers

There are so many benefits to using math and literacy centers during center time and throughout the day in many different ways!

1)  I was able to quickly utilize planning and writing in lesson plans.

2)  I wasn't constantly searching for new material to use.  I used the same activities over and over in my classroom.

3)  The center activities could be used over and over throughout the year in many different ways!

4)  While students were enjoying and learning during center time, I was able to fill in the gaps by utilizing small group teaching. 

Do you want to try out a few NO PREP math and literacy centers?  Click here to grab a few samples for FREE!

If you aren't using centers and center activities, you are missing out on one of the most fun and effective ways to teach and learn in your classroom!

If you want to return to this post later, just save this pin!

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