Tub Time Task Cards

What is your go-to when students trickle into the classroom or finish tasks early? How about when it is yet another indoor recess day? The end of the week when I want to reward students with choice time while I reset my stations also comes to mind.  There are times throughout the week when we need something different for students.  Go read a book can only go so far for most students…guilty.  This post explores 16 anytime tubs to fill in those important learning moments.  Let’s take a look at Tub Time Task Cards.

TUB TIME TASK CARDS

We wanted to create a set of tasks ready to be used anytime students need to work independently.  The challenge was to engage students in things they didn’t get to do on the regular in order to increase interest.  For this reason, each tub task involves math or literacy learning with a splash of fun.  Here are 16 sets of simple tasks with simple materials done in a fun way.

TUB TASKS INCLUDED

The rainbow photo carrier contains 16 boxes.  This was the choice for our organization.  These tub tasks can also be put into baggies, pencil boxes, other tubs, or envelopes.  Below is a list of tasks included and the skills taught.

• Pop It– lowercase, uppercase, and shape formation
• Color Code– writing 100 sight words with consonants blue and vowels red
• Sticky Numbers– creating digits with popsicle sticks
• Playdoh Practice– forming letters using playdoh
• Type and Text– typing 100 sight words on a keyboard or phone
• Dab a Digit– using a bingo dauber to dot digit formation
• Dab a Double– using a bingo dauber to dot upper- and lower-case letters
• Link Letters– creating letters using links
• Snap Sums– solving addition problems within 10 to create sum with snap cubes
• Pattern Plus– creating given and new patterns with different manipulatives
• Sprinkle Sums– solving addition problems within 10 by placing “sprinkles” on ice cream
• Roll and Write– roll a dot cube and writing a word from the word wall with the same number of letters
• Stretchy Sounds– sounding out cvc words
• Counting Cow– filling in missing numbers
• Dino Differences– using pictures to subtract
• This Little Pig– counting pennies and creating a given number of cents with pennies

WAYS TO USE TUB TIME TASK CARDS

Anytime students need to have engaging activities outside of their lesson plans, these tub tasks can fit the need!

• morning tubs
• early finishers
• reward time
• indoor recess
• independent math/literacy station
• intervention
• extra minutes in learning day

EVEN MORE EXTRA TASKS

When students trickle into our classroom at different times what go-to activities do you do? Even with high expectations and high-quality activities in place, we always have students who require even more.  Knowing how to keep these students engaged for the entire station will lessen the opportunity for off-task behavior from all students in the room.  For those reasons, fast finisher expert tubs are a necessity.