While doing some looking around on the internet for ideas for the fall internship I remembered a great resource that I thought I would share!
A resource in which I would love and will try to incorporate into my internship is the book, “Have You Filled a Bucket Today?”
This is a resource that I think is a great way of creating a sense of community in the classroom, and even in the entire school.
I also believe that this resource is a great way to teach about feelings and a great way to explain how feelings and emotions work to younger children. Sometimes the idea of how to treat others is simply expected from children, but the truth is, some have never needed to know how to treat others. And I think this is a resource that can benefit many people.
Another great benefit to this resource is the website is filled with tons of great activities and ways to use this book!
Has anyone used this resource before? If so what did you do and how did it work for you?
Lacey Euteneier 
Oh, I love this book! I started the bucket filling project in my classroom, when I was teaching back home. I stumbled upon this site on net and found it to be a great way to teach children how to reach out and express their emotions as well as to respect and appreciate others.
I used library pockets with bucket pictures attached to them and hung them in the bulletin board. I encouraged the class to help fill each other’s bucket by writing kind and appreciative words to them. We use to empty the buckets every week to look what was in store for everyone. I was really happy to see the results. The children were no more self-centered and were learning to show respect to everyone. It also helped to boost their self-confidence by reading appreciative words written for them. I even kept a teachers bucket and I felt great to see how students appreciated all my efforts!
Thanks for sharing! I reminded me of all the good time I had while teaching in India!
Hi Lacey,
I love this book and I find that it works for almost any grade in elementary school! I was able to work in a teacher’s classroom who read this book to her students but then created follow up activities to monitor students participation and behaviour. The teacher assigned students individual cups, when the students did something to help someone else or exhibited desirable and selfless behaviour, they got to put one pom-pom in their “bucket” (cup). At the end of the week the teacher would ask the students to count how many pom-poms they had in their cup. There would be an award at the end of the week given to the student with the most pom-poms. Reversibly, if a student had pom-poms in their bucket and they did something to hurt someone else or exhibited poor behaviour they would be asked to remove a pom-pom from their cup. The students were always engaged in doing selfless and helpful things for others. It also helped the students become aware of respect and disrespect for their peers and people in the school – which I think is easier for students to comprehend then just verbally telling them it is wrong to hurt peoples’ feelings.
When my ECE 325 class visited Terry Cote’s Grade 6 at Mother Teresa Middle School last January, I saw that she had a similar project. She is really great at sharing ideas. I have not had the opportunity to try this in a real class, but I think that we can use this visual at any age, visuals can be very powerful.
I have this book on my wish-list on amazon and garage sale hunting list! I think that this is such a great idea engage students in helpful activities as well as help children be more aware of their actions. I am really hoping that I will have an opportunity to do this in my pre-internship in the fall.