I have just introduced the Bucket of Happiness to my class as a way to get them to understand that their actions have an impact on other people. So far it has been amazing!
I read the book "Fill a Bucket" to my class and we discussed it as we went. After the book I put my bucket in front of them and we talked about all the things that people do to make us happy and fill our buckets. Then we talked about the things that people do that might take some of our happiness away. Each time they came up with an idea I took some happiness (foam shapes) out. Once the bucket was empty we talked about how a person with an empty bucket would feel. We have done a lot of work on personal feelings and they were able to articulate the sadness really well. We then set to work filling the bucket up again with the children giving me ways they could fill the bucket and then placing the happiness back in the bucket. It was a fantastic introduction to the bucket and the class responded really well to having the visual aid of a real bucket there while also understanding that the bucket is actually imaginary.
During the day when something bad happened I took some of the happiness out. The children responded to this by then doing little things to help me put the happiness in bit by bit. They also started using the terminology themselves by telling me that someone was emptying their bucket. The focus is currently on emptying not filling so I will go further with them by talking to them about using their lids - not letting little things people do take our happiness away.
At the end of the day I asked the question - Have you filled a bucket today?
A few of the children were not sure if they had filled a bucket and I was really impressed to see other children speak up and tell them that they helped fill their bucket by playing with them.
I am really looking forward to continuing with this concept with the class and seeing where we end up!
If you want more information on Bucket Filling check out http://www.bucketfillers101.com/
