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You are here: Home / Preschool STEM / Holiday Tinker Tubs™

Holiday Tinker Tubs™

Tinker Tubs™ make it easy to start encouraging students to persevere with open-ended play and exploration. And what better way to use all those fun holiday materials from the dollar spot!

What is a Tinker Tub™?

A Tinker Tub™ is a container with provided materials that encourage children to build, create and design with or without creative prompts.

holiday tinker tub materials

How to Use a Tinker Tub™:

Step 1: Choose your tub (or box, or bin) For our holiday tinker tub, we used a festive red box.

Step 2: Choose your building materials

You don’t have to purchase new materials to fill your tinker tub. Use what you have!

tinker tub for Christmas

Suggestions for Materials:

  • Pipe cleaners
  • Small Plastic Ornaments
  • Jingle Bells
  • Gift Bows
  • Pom Poms
  • Wooden Blocks
  • Pattern Blocks
  • Ribbon
  • Colored Craft Sticks
  • Small Plastic Cups
  • Recycled Containers
  • Cardboard Tubes

You can pick one material or mix and match.


Step 3: Let your students tinker.

tink tub for preschoolers

Our STEAM Challenge cards may be added to the Tinker Tub™ as a creative prompt. Some students may like the challenge card to help spark a new idea and other children may have their own ideas of what they wish to build or make (which is totally okay)!

steam challenge cards

Sign up and get our holiday STEAM cards free! Also included are a set of Christian and Jewish holiday cards.

holiday cards for kids

holiday tinker tub steam

To learn more about Tinker Tubs™, check out our get started guide:

think tub starter card

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Filed Under: Preschool STEM

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