Filling Buckets in Kindergarten

We recently read Have You Filled A Bucket Today? By Carol McCloud, 

and How Full Is Your Bucket?

 by Tom Rath and Mary Reckmeyer

By now you may have heard your kindergartner talking about how full or empty their bucket is.  The books state that we all carry invisible buckets around with us, and they hold our good feelings in them.  When someone is kind, our bucket fills with good feelings.  When someone is unkind our bucket empties.  When you are kind to others, you are a bucket filler.  When you are unkind to others, you are a bucket dipper.  The children have decided to use rainbow hearts and stars (like the ones in the book) to write about how their friends have filled their buckets.  

These books have helped the children understand empathy.  They have also helped us sculpt a culture of kindness in our classroom.  Whenever someone is sad, and we say, "empty bucket alert", a classmates offers love and kindness to the person with the empty bucket.  If only the adult world were so open and supportive! :-)