Has your child come home saying he is a bucket filler or that someone helped fill her bucket today? Are you wondering what that means?
This year we are going to use a character building program called Bucket Filling. Bucket Filling is an easy-to-understand concept: Everyone carries an invisible bucket that holds our good thoughts and feelings. When our buckets are full, we feel happy and when our buckets are empty, we feel sad. Children quickly understand that they can fill buckets when they do and say things that are kind, considerate, caring, and respectful. They also learn that when they are mean, inconsiderate, uncaring, or disrespectful, they dip into buckets and remove those good feelings. During this school year we are encouraging, reminding, and recognizing everyone’s efforts to be bucket fillers at home, at school, and everywhere they go. We are excited about this program and look forward to your support. If you would like to learn more about bucket filling, visit the Bucket Fillers website, www.bucketfillers101.com. Bucket Fillers offer a free weekly e-newsletter for parents and teachers.
During the first week of school the children were introduced to a book called Have
You Filled a Bucket Today? A Guide to Daily Happiness for Kids . It
teaches children the concept of giving back in a light-hearted but appropriate
way. The concept of giving to others is named being a "bucket
filler". While hurting others, irritating them, or bullying is named
being a "bucket dipper". Examples are given so that children
can learn ways to help others at home and school. The best message of all
is the affirmation that giving not only helps the receiver but the mere act of
giving also benefits the giver.
In our classroom, students will have their own bucket where other students can write notes telling ways they have filled each other's buckets. On Fridays we will have time to read through these notes and see the positive ways our classmates have filled our buckets. My hope is that this program will encourage our class to be more of a family and foster positive relationships.