Have You Filled a Bucket Today? A Guide to Daily Happiness for Kids
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#1 Play a Guessing Game
In our older son’s classroom, we read the book then played Pictionary where we drew examples of bucket filling activities for the kids to guess. Charades would also work great with the theme “How can you fill a bucket?”
#2 Make a Bucket
In our younger son’s classroom, we prepared a hands-on craft. We simply got big red cups and drew faces on with permanent marker, and punched two holes near the rim. Each child received a cup, pipe cleaner, stick-on jewels and stickers, and a short explanation of what bucket filling is to glue on. Easy! They were quite proud of their buckets.
#3 Fill a Bucket
After visiting the classrooms, my older son’s teacher took the bucket filling lessons further. For Mother’s Day, the kids made these sweet cards for where they wrote notes to fill their mothers’ buckets. The card was made with two pieces of card stock stuck together (around the edges) with a hole cut in the top one, so the cards could fit in!
#4 Make a Poster
She also asked the kids to draw pictures of how they could fill buckets at school and made a beautiful hallway display.
#5 Coloring Book
My Very Own Bucket Filling from A to Z Coloring Book
Have you used the Bucket Fillers resources? If not, I highly recommend them for use at home and in the classroom!
Here are some other Bucket Filler posts and activities to learn about kindness that you may enjoy:
Review: Circle of Light CD, a companion to Bucket Filler Resources
Review: Baby’s Bucket Book
Creating a Wall of Kindness (Bucket Filler Activity)
30+ Recommended Character Education Books for Kids
I received materials from Bucket Fillers, Inc to review for this article. All opinions expressed are my own. To find out more about advertisement and reviews on my website please click here.
So, once you make the cute little red bucket, how do you use it? I was going to read this book to my family and try to do some activities.
We made it as just a fun craft, we didn’t do anything with it 🙂 But you could always write kind notes to each other if kids were old enough. My four year old os using it to keep special rocks in 😉
OK, my kids are 4 and 6. I think they would like to put notes in them. I’ll try that. Thank you!
Neat Idea 🙂
In my class we use ponpoms to fill a bucket for acts of kindness that I observe. When the bucket is full the class gets a special something like extra play time outside. I start off with large ones they get smaller ones as they become more skilled. We chart what the kind act was and give cheers for those involved.
Lovely, thanks so much for sharing!!
Loved this post Chelsea. What are the cute cards in the main photo? Where can we get those? Thank you for all you post and do to help and inspire others. I have learned much.
Do you mean the rainbow coloured cut outs? I created those with a brief explanation of what bucket filling was, just on the computer – mostly so that when the kids brought the craft home then the parents could understand what it was all about 🙂
Do you have a close-up of the explanation? Would love to use it with my Kindergarten / Grade 1 class 🙂
I would love to use this with my early kindergarten class…would you mind sharing your explanation??
I’m very sorry I dont have the file anymore (it was a different computer I made it on) but I basically just described what bucket filling is! Check out their website for ideas.
Hello! love your ideas 🙂 can you share with me the little cutout that goes on the Bucket Filler Solo Cup craft? I am definitely doing this with my class!
Hi Amy! I’m sorry it’s been a while but the cut out was basically a description of what a bucket filler was, and I just created a grid and made the rectangles different colours (we also made bookmarks for my other son’s class – thus the shape). Hope you enjoy the activity!
Did you use a whole puncher to make holes for the cup?
Yes!
What does the card say to put in the bucket that explains what bucket filling is?
Sorry Janelle I don’t have the document anymore. I just summed up the idea of bucket filling (ie Everyone has an invisible bucket, when we do nice things and say nice things we fill someone’s bucket, when we make someone feel bad or bully someone we are emptying their bucket…).