Bucket Filling

Have you filled a bucket today?

Many schools have adopted the wonderful "Bucket Filling" system, and although we don't follow this program school-wide, our children are VERY aware of what "bucket fillers" and "bucket dippers" are, thanks to the wonderful book called, "Have you filled a bucket, today?" by Carol McCloud.

Following this story, we watched

"The Bucket Filling Song" by The Learning Station.

This is a fun way to bring the book to life and for the kids to get some wiggles out by dancing and singing to "The Bucket Filling Song".

 

As a group, we talked about examples of bucket filling and bucket dipping. We also discussed what we could do if someone was dipping from our bucket, for example; walk away, tell an adult you trust, use an "I" message, etc.

 I created a "bucket" by using a Wal-Mart garbage can for the activity portion of my lesson. The bucket also had a lid on it which kept out the "bucket dippers". Following our discussion and examples of "bucket fillers and dippers", I used pictures I found off of Clip Art that represented positive and negative behavior. If the picture showed someone filling a bucket, we would put the picture inside of the bucket to represent bucket filling; however, if the picture represented a negative behavior, we would leave the picture outside of the bucket to represent bucket dipping and at the end of the activity, we closed the lid to keep the bucket dippers out!

This is a picture of me with some of my 2nd grade students in Mrs. Altmyer's class. We were excited to make the The Mobile Press Register with our Bucket Filling lesson! The kids were also excited because at the end of my lesson, I left behind a special bucket for their classroom, along with some blank cards to put their names on if their teacher caught them "filling someone's bucket." When I returned for my next lesson, I drew two names out of the bucket that had been filled with many names of bucket fillers and those two students won a treat out of my goody bag!