Is your bucket full?

So recently I applied for a blogging position with Yummy Mummy as their education/book blogger (this was on May 22nd haven't heard anything) so I decided to share one of my sample blogs I submitted: ENJOY!

Have you filled someone’s bucket today?

Did you even know that you have a bucket and that it needs filling?  That is the premise of Carol McCloud’s book “Have You Filled a Bucket Today?”  We all have a bucket and everyone’s bucket needs to be filled with “good thoughts and good feelings about yourself”.    As a bucket filler, you can fill people’s buckets by smiling at them, giving them a compliment or by telling them you love them.   But you may encounter bucket dippers, people who hurt other people and have an empty bucket themselves.  They try to take from others in order to feel better.

 It is such a simple concept but has a profound effect.  As a parent,  you and I want our children to be good people.  We try to lead by example but this book helps us by writing it and illustrating it, in an easy way for very young children to understand.  A young mind is so absorbent, along with all that academic education why would you not want your child to learn this too, how to be a kind and caring person?

It may not solve bullying but it is an excellent way to reinforce to children how to be a good friend.  It helps young children learn to care and give love to others.  Hopefully by teaching it to students at a young age it will stick and grow as they become really good at filling other people’s buckets.  As a teacher to young students, I have used this storybook as a reminder to them about how to treat their friends.  I also know of the staff of a school that helped literally fill each others’ buckets with good thoughts. 

There are additional books to emphasize and incorporate bucket filling into everyone’s everyday life, Fill a Bucket: A Guide to Daily Happiness For Young Children,  Growing Up with a Bucket Full of Happiness: Three Rules for a Happier Life  and My Bucketfilling Journal: 30 Days to a Happier Life.  You can also check out www.bucketfillers101.com for even more inspiration and ideas.  The website has merchandise, resource ideas for teachers to use in their classroom including downloadables and you can sign up for a bucket filler’s newsletter .

When I first discovered this book I read it twice in one week and I could hear my students talking about their buckets and even sending a compliment my way to make sure my bucket was full!