I LOVE LOVE LOVE This Idea!!!!!!!

Bucket Fillers!!!

I ran across this idea when I was checking out some of my favorite blogs and I thought  "Hmmmm - this is a cool idea!"  Then as I was on pinterest a few weeks later, I noticed how many people were also repining the idea of bucket fillers.  So I thought "HMMMMMM!!!  Maybe I need to see how I could use this in my classroom."

I revisited my favorite blogs and did a little more research and I was HOOKED!  Okay, I know what you are thinking ---  "Quit babbling Mrs. Straight, and tells us what all the fuss is about!"

Bucket fillers is an anti-bullying campaign that encourages positive behavior in children.  I introduced this concept by reading How Full is Your Bucket by Tom Rath and Have You Filled a Bucket Today? by Carol McCloud to my kindergarten kiddos.  Through simple prose and wonderful illustrations the book stresses how rewarding it is to express daily kindness, appreciation and love. 

The books explain to children that we all carry an invisible bucket in which we keep our feeling about ourselves.  When our buckets are full, we are happy.  When our buckets are empty, we are sad.  It is important to know that we can fill our own buckets and so can others.  We fill our buckets by saying nice things and by helping out others around us.

We can also be a bucket dipper, by saying unkind things or by being mean to others.

In our classroom, the boys and girls are using pom poms as their "warm fuzzy" they give to others when they are a bucket fillers.  Students place the pom pom in their bucket if someone does something nice for them as well as the person who made them feel "warm and fuzzy".

The boys and girls LOVE it!  Are you a bucket filler?  WE ARE!!!