Morning Tubs (Play-Based Learning)

Good morning! This year I decided to completely change what my students do in the mornings. Last year I was overwhelmed by constantly having to find something online, make copies, and guide students through their morning work. I felt that what I was having them do wasn't as meaningful as it could have been and that I was wasting a lot of paper! So after lots of research from some of my favorite teachers and bloggers I decided to make my own edition of fine motor practice, stem bins, and morning tubs.

Why play-based learning? Especially at the beginning of the school year it is crucial for our students to have practice with their fine motor skills. These skills contribute to their ability to hold their pencil, trace lines, cut paper, etc. In addition to building fine motor skills, play-based learning builds creativity and social skills. They are building their physical, emotional, and social skills through the interactions they are having with their peers and with the activities you provide. These blog posts were helpful for me when I began thinking about using play-based learning as my morning work. Each teacher puts their own spin on morning tubs. Check out some of their ideas and activities with the links below.

Little Minds at Work by Tara West - Explore Tubs!

Fun in First by Jodi Southard - My Morning Routine

Bonnie Kathryn Teaching - Kindergarten Morning Tubs

The Brown Bag Teacher by Cathryn Reed - A 1st Grade Morning Work Alternative

What do I do? First, I purchased 6 white plastic dish pans from Dollar Tree to house my activities. Each tub has a label on it that I printed from TpT on Astrobrights paper. These can be accessed with the links below through the picture and affiliated amazon link.

These labels are on my morning tubs and the cubby that the tub is stored in. This makes for easy clean up with my students. These labels are FREE from Catherine Reed - The Brown Bag Teacher! They are beautiful printed on Astrobrights! 

Next, I choose which activities I was going to put in my first set of morning tubs. I wanted to pick materials that many of my students were familiar with. In order to keep my tubs an INDEPENDENT activity I have to fill them with engaging materials. So here are my first 6 morning tubs:

1. Threading

2. Geoboards

3. Beads and Pipe Cleaners

4. Sorting 

5. Bristle Blocks

6. Legos

Then, TRAIN THEM. You cannot welcome your students on Monday morning with your tubs laid out, ready and expect students to know what to do. I found this easiest to teach them is by modeling each tub specifically. The do's and the don'ts! I also showed my students how to clean up each tub, how it should look on the inside and how it should look in the cubby. We practice and watched one another choose a tub, choose a seat, and start working right away. My students are allowed to work in groups of 4 and sit anywhere in the classroom. Throughout the day, after lots of modeling, we practiced our morning tubs for 3-5 minutes several times.

Last, give them a go! My students still needed guidance, which is expected on the first day. I am still learning what works best in my classroom. As I change them out I will keep you updated! I'm excited about how these will help my students and allow for social play in the classroom. Good luck to all who are trying morning tubs in their classroom this year! Comment below with your activities and how it's going so far.

More ink please!

Let those Monday blues go! I'm about to share something that will change things for you...

This August I printed over 650 pages of colored ink in preparation for the new school year. Yep, you read that right... 650 pages of colored ink. And guess what. It didn't cost me anything! Does anyone else print an excessive amount of colored copies? Does any other school NOT provide colored ink to its teacher? Are you looking for a way to afford enough ink every month?

This last year I enrolled in HP instant ink! I will NEVER go back to purchasing ink cartridges on my own. HP instant ink is an enrollment program for qualifying HP printers. I own the HP OfficeJet 3830 e-All-in-One Printer Series. You can find this printer on Amazon for less than $50! After you read all the information below and you're interested trying out HP instant ink and want a month FREE click on the printer below to use my code for a free month (that's 1!). And keep reading to find out ways to add more free months to the start of your enrollment. Cha-Ching! First money saving tip.

Click to get 1 month FREE of service!

So how does HP instant ink work? There are three plans to choose from. Well actually, there are four! If you contact HP via their online chat you can ask for the $14.99 plan for up to 500 pages per month. If you print like I do you will NEED this plan. You are billed when you first insert an HP instant ink cartridge into your enrolled printer. Throughout the month HP will send you ink BEFORE you run out. Your printer will notify HP that you are low on ink, whether it is color or black, and then send you a new cartridge. You also receive a pre-paid recycling envelopes to return your used cartridges.

     

How will you save money with this service? You will only be charged once per month regardless of how many cartridges you use. This means you could print all of your allowed pages in complete color and it would cost the same as if you printed all of your allowed pages with one word printed in black ink. A typical ink cartridge costs between $30-$50 to replace each time. This is already at least double, if not triple, what you would spend for a month of HP instant ink enrollment. For me, purchasing a new $50 printer was worth it because of the amount of money I saved on ink throughout the year!

The perks keep rolling... What happens if you don't use all your allowed pages for the month? Each month the pages that you do not use will be rolled over to the next month! With my 500 page plan and many rollover pages from the summer I was able to print over 650 pages in August at no additional cost. Use the code 6freeink (that's 7!) for an 6 months of free service when you sign up.

Sign me up! To sign up you will need an eligible HP instant ink printer, internet connection, valid email address, and valid credit/debit card. If you're purchasing your printer new it should come with a code for 1-3 months of free service (that could be 10!). Hopefully you are lucky and receive 3 months like I did. Don't forget the other codes throughout this post.

To summarize... I love my HP instant ink printer!

Check out these affiliated amazon links for eligible HP instant ink. Don't forget to gather the various promo codes from this post to earn yourself up to 10 months of free ink!

                               

                               

Lucy Calkins: Take 2

It's hump day! Happy Wednesday y'all! This past January I shared my writing folders and a TpT freebie based on Lucy Calkins Writing Units of Study. This is my school systems mandated writing curriculum. It is not only my second year tackling it but our school systems second year as well! In the last year I have learned a lot about the curriculum and how to make it work in my Kindergarten classroom. This year I changed a few components of my writers workshop based on end of year reflections and to meet the needs of my class this year. 

First of all, I am still using writing folders with my students. Each students has a writing folder that contains their writing workshop resources. This year I included an alphabet chart, color words, number words, and the Dolch pre-primer and primer sight words. Later in the year I will add our writing rubric and anchor chart for spelling. These resources were pulled from various TpT shops and authors. Check them out below. Each picture is a link to where you can purchase your own copy.

             

These folder covers are very easy to use and even easier if you print them on half sheet shipping labels. Check out the affiliated amazon link to grab your half sheet shipping labels.

In my writing folders I use the color/number chart, "my writing rules" checklist, and the "I can spell." chart from Samantha Kelly. Her anchor charts in this resources are great! They will be used throughout the year in our writers workshop.

These phonics charts are awesome. Right now my writing folders only have the alphabet chart from this bundle. Later in the year I will add charts as students are exposed to and using more sounds/patterns in their writing.

More from Haley O'Connor! I love her resources. This pack makes a great communication folder (which is what I use it for primarily) but I also pulled the Dolch pre-primer and primer sight words charts to also put in their writing folders. Later in the year I can add the 1st grade list to students folders who are ready for it.

GRAB YOUR FREEBIE!

Finally, grab your TpT freebie to label the pockets in your folder. Print these on Avery labels for easy application. For more information about these labels check out my original post about writing folders.

And drum roll... here are my writing folders!

Question, what do you have in your writing folders?

As the year goes on I plan to share more of our writing workshop. My students are doing so well with writing independently for extended periods of times. On Monday they wrote for 25 minutes and were all fully engaged. You could have heard a pen drop! I was able to conference with some the students who were ready to start labeling their drawing. These students were quick to pick up on identifying the beginning sound and letter they needed for each of their labels. This progress is amazing! I'm excited to see where my students go this year with their writing. Do you use Lucy Calkins? If so, what do you love about her curriculum and what do you find challenging?

I'M BACK + Classroom Tour!

Hey y'all! Welcome back! Here's how things have been going following week 5 of this school year.

1. I am truly teacher tired and have been for the last month. The beginning of the school year is hard and exhausting... and if you're really doing the most it's expensive too!

2. I have spent more of my money than I'd like to admit. Don't get me wrong, my classroom is a beautiful place and it is definitely my home away from home, but it did not come free or cheap.

3. I really do love teaching and adore Kindergarten. I have been blessed to have sweet classes in the past but something about this group just tugs on my heart strings a little extra.

When I was setting up my classroom my goal was to create a fun and functional environment where my students could thrive and be in control of their own learning. Of course I know this layout is not set in stone and I will probably decide to change things up throughout the year but this is what I'm working with now and so far it's working like a charm! Please forgive the unfinished areas, as many of you know a teachers job is never done!

Source

My new classroom sign is from LooLeighsCharm on Etsy. Check her out!

View from classroom door.

My "desk" corner and small group learning space. I love having these IKEA stools for small groups!

View from back corner. These Walmart MainStay rugs have been a great addition to the classroom especially with our flexible seating arrangement. Grab the teal one here! 

Hallway wall. Get a copy of the Some Letters anchor chart on TpT!

Student work display board. Letters cut on a Cricket Explore Air.

Students hang their backpacks and jackets here. Labels are from Teaching and Coffee on TpT. I use command hooks to create two additional hooks in each hanging cubby group. 

Morning Tubs with labels from Catherine Reed - The Brown Bag Teacher on TpT. More information about my morning tubs coming up in a post soon!

Front wall and whole group learning space. Does anyone spy my HP printer? Information about my printer and the HP instant ink program coming soon in a post.

Students book boxes. Labels are from Teaching and Coffee on TpT.

Shop Haley O'Connor on TpT.

Shop Haley O'Conoor on TpT for number and shape posters.

Calendar Board - Shop Haley O'Connor on TpT.

Our anchor chart easel! This anchor chart was created using Samantha Kelly's - Launching Writing Workshop.

This bin holds all my read alouds, frequently used pointers, and supplies for whole group lessons. 

Labels are from Teaching and Coffee and lunch tag cards are from Just A Primary Girl on TpT.

Shop A Smiling Teacher on TpT.

Back wall. Eventually the two bulletin board panels at the top will display word families and content vocabulary.

Writing Station. Get this bundle on TpT from A Smiling Teacher.

Magnetic word wall - Shop Haley O'Connor on TpT.

Student accessible classroom library. The top baskets are topic specific and the small baskets are leveled using F&P.

Cubbies! These went through a serious transformation with some intense scrubbing and good coat of paint. They hold ALL my students supplies, journals, notebooks, and dry erase boards. More information about what's in each of my students cubbies coming soon in a post about how flexible seating works in my classroom. The bins on top hold clipboards, Thursday couriers, and the larger pink bin holds students lunches.

These last five weeks have been amazing and I have found this years set up very successful. I am still working on getting my literacy and math stations setup and organized. When they are ready I will be sharing them here. All of my self created bulletin boards are made with this adorable weathered wood fadeless paper. The command hooks I use for additional backpack/jacket hooks are from amazon. Grab some for you classroom from the affiliated amazon link below!

                    

Leave a comment below with the changes you made to your classroom set up this year. I'm excited to continue on the blogging journey this school year and share my second full year with y'all!