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How to Setup Morning Bins in 1st or 2nd Grade

Routines & Procedures

Written by: Mary Kate Bolinder

Are you ready for a change to your morning routine? Discover the buzz about morning tubs, and give these morning bin ideas a try! Morning bins are a popular idea for preschool and kindergarten classrooms. Are you wondering how this routine could be successful in 1st and 2nd grade? Keep reading for everything you need to know about planning, storing, and implementing a successful morning bin routine in your classroom.

What are Morning Bins?

Morning bins are organized activities that students can engage with independently at the beginning of the day. Morning bins usually contain creative, open-ended materials, or other types of hands-on activities like centers, board games, or art supplies.

How to Set Up Morning Bins

Step 1: Get the Bins

Of course we need to start with finding the right bins for your needs. It does pay off to get a bit more durable bins since students will be handling them. Here are some recommendations:

Sterilite 18qt Clear Bins, 8 Pack

The perks of these bins is they are see through, include a latching lid, highly rated and a decent price.

Purchase on Amazon

IRIS USA 6qt Large Clip Boxes, 4 Pack

Another highly rated product, these bins take up a bit less space.

Purchase on Amazon

Step 2: Print the Labels

Even with see through bins, it is helpful to slap on a label for ease of use. But, don't fret, we've got you covered. Grab these ready to print labels.

All Access member? Download FREE here.

Get Classroom Labels in our Shop

Step 3: Gather Your Materials

At the beginning of the year, using open-ended materials in morning bins is a great way to teach the routine and allow students to freely explore classroom materials. Some favorite materials to use in morning bins include:

  • Building blocks
  • Lego
  • Play-doh, clay, kinetic sand
  • Craft materials (popsicle sticks, plastic cups, toothpicks, pom-poms, etc.)
  • wiki sticks
  • pipe cleaners with beads
  • puzzles
  • magnets
  • race cars
  • drawing materials
  • marbles and marble run
  • magnatiles
  • magnetic letters
  • Board games
  • playing cards
  • card games
  • Math Manipulatives (tangrams, unifix cubes, dominos, dice, base ten blocks, counting chips, etc.)

Wise Words About Morning Bin Materials

“I started doing morning tubs this year. Today a group made a block portrait of ME 😂 complete with the word “love” on top.❤️ This made me smile!”

Alayne J., Lucky 2nd Grade Teachers Facebook Group

“I find that when the kids have had a chance to explore and play with the math manipulatives they are better able to use them during math as “tools” rather than “toys” – they've already had the opportunity to play with them, so they don't have to during math!”

Anonymous User, Lucky 2nd Grade Teachers Facebook Group

Once kids have had a chance to practice the morning bins routine with open-ended manipulatives, they are ready for more academic tasks.Try using math or literacy in your morning bins, like our math centers for example.

All Access member? Download Math Centers FREE here.

Math Centers

Get 2nd Grade Math Centers

Get 1st Grade Math Centers

Step 4: Assign Morning Bins

Choose what works best for your students when assigning morning bins. Here are a few suggestions from our teaching community:

  • Label each bin with a number. When students arrive in the morning, they choose a number and work on that bin.
  • The teacher may assign a bin
  • Students may choose for themselves – if other students ask to join them, they share the materials (set a limit for how many students can use a morning bin at one time. Different materials will have different limits of how many people can work at once!)

Tips for Teaching Morning Bin Expectations

At the beginning of the school year, create an anchor chart with students to explain expectations for morning bins. Some expectations to consider:

  • I am on task
  • I respect the materials
  • I can put away the morning bin the way I found it
  • I respect the classmates who are using the bin with me
  • I include any classmate that wants to share the materials
  • I can clean up and put away the morning bin when asked
  • I will use a calm, working voice during the activity

Wise Words About Morning Bin Expectations

“Go over expectations for working and using materials, voice levels, tell them what work you expect, and make sure kids know how to play games. It will save you time. Make sure they know not to interrupt you if you are working with children.”

Step 5: Transition from Morning Bins to the Next Activity

Many teachers have found that morning bins are a natural transition to either morning work or morning meeting. When managing expectations, let students know that you will give them a two-minute alert to start winding down the activity and cleaning up.

Wise Words About Morning Bin Transitions

“I used morning tubs the last two months of school to try it out. My kids LOVED it. The tubs I used included Legos, Geoboards, Unifix cubes, craft boxes (stencils, fancy scissors, and colored paper), and magnetic/wooden dress-up dolls. This year I will be adding play-doh and more Legos. I also used this time for students to have free time on Kindles and computers. When students heard the morning bell they knew they had 2 minutes to clean up.”

Accountability and Morning Bins

Morning bins are meant to be a soft start activity. The activities in morning bins should be used to review and maintain previously taught skills. Let them have fun exploring the materials! Morning tubs are also a great way to work on some fine motor skills improvement, and collaborative and cooperative play, which is so crucial for young learners!

Top teacher tip: Take a picture of what the bin should look like when it is put away, and tape it to the top of the bin. This is a way to model how to respect and maintain materials.

Wise Words About Morning Bin Accountability

“I do not hold them accountable except that they have to choose a different bin everyday. The bins are numbered 1-5. I may incorporate a 1-5 checklist for them this year so they can remember which bins they have done for the week.”

Step 6: How to Store Morning Bins

Keep morning bins in an accessible, easy-to-reach place in the classroom. Students should be able to take out and put away bins independently.

What is the teacher doing?

When morning bins are first introduced, observe to ensure that students are on task and using materials appropriately. As students get used to the morning bin routine, this allows your morning time a bit of flexibility. This is the time to get ALL THE THINGS done to start your school day. Attendance, lunch count, last-minute parent emails, reviewing lesson plans, discussions with specialists and assistant teachers, working one-on-one or in a small group with students for quick review or check-in, or assessing skills. This is also a time to talk, observe, engage and connect with your students.

Take a Deeper Dive

Join Katie from Team Lucky Little Learners as she walks you through three types of classroom morning routines.

Want to learn more about classroom morning routines?

To find out more about morning routines and meetings, check out these previous posts.

Morning Meeting Conversations

Why Morning Meetings are More Important Than Ever

10 Morning Message Ideas

Classroom Morning Routine Ideas

Google Slides for Morning Meetings

Share your tips for a successful morning bin routine in the comments!

8 Comments

  1. Lisa Sherrill

    I love this! I have so many questions. So do you have 25 bins for the week? How much time do you set aside?

    Reply
    • Jess

      Hello Lisa! The number of bins will vary depending on how many students you have in your class. You can have a bin for each student if you’d prefer for them to work independently. Or, you can have bins that multiple students can share. To get started, we recommend having enough bins so that students share with a partner. You can start small with familiar materials and build your collection of morning bins as your students become more accustomed to them. Lots of teachers like to change up their morning bins depending on their units of study or monthly themes. As far as how much time to set aside for morning bins – the best thing about them is that they provide a lot of flexibility! Typically students work with morning bins for at least 15 minutes. I hope this helps as you get started with this routine in your classroom. Let us know how it goes!

      Reply
  2. Ambur B

    How can I get access to the labels that you used for these? I am apart of the all access.

    Reply
    • Jess Dalrymple

      I’m so sorry, but the daily tub labels pictured in this post are not on All Access. They are something one of our teachers created for her classroom. However, you can find lots of other options for labels in All Access HERE. Thanks for reaching out!

      Reply
  3. Amy

    I’ve been trying out morning bins for a few years and love the soft start! This year however, students have a staggered morning. Students start trickling in at 8:00-8:30 (up to 5 min after announcements). I was having later students join a morning bin when they arrived, but recently changed this as I was losing too much instructional time.
    It’s been 6 months and I’m still struggling with it. those early kiddos are doing it 30 minutes some days. Any suggestions? My think tank is empty!

    Reply
    • Jess Dalrymple

      Hello Amy! Have you tried using a timer, and when the timer goes off they have to stop the bin and do something else?

      Reply
  4. Sarah

    Are these standards aligned?? I’m new to this and would love to do morning bins but need to be aligned

    Reply
    • Jess Dalrymple

      Hello Sarah! That is a great question! You can certainly make standards-aligned morning bins. For example, one suggestion in this post is to use our 1st or 2nd grade math centers as the bin activities. All of our centers are standards-aligned, so that might be a good option for you!

      Reply

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