Bucket Fillers

             The idea of Bucket Fillers is based on Dr. Donald O. Clifton's metaphor of the bucket and the dipper. The first person to bring this idea to a school setting was "The Bucket Man", Merrill Lundgren.

Several books have been written about bucket fillers. Carol McCloud wrote a book called "Have You Filled A Bucket Today? (A Guide to Daily Happiness For Kids)". The premise of the book is the idea that we all carry an invisible bucket that contains our feelings. When our bucket is full, we feel great. When our bucket is empty, we feel sad. A bucket filler is someone who says or does nice things for other people. By doing this, they are filling other people's buckets and filling their own bucket at the same time.

On the other hand, a bucket dipper says or does things to cause other people to feel bad. A bucket dipper empties their bucket when they say and do mean things.

            In our classroom,  we will be looking for bucket fillers daily and when we find a student giving a helping hand or offering encouragement and kind words, we will acknowledge them and celebrate by filling our class bucket. In addition, each student will have a  bucket on our Bucket Filler bulletin board. Everyone is encouraged to fill the buckets by writing kind words and compliments to each other. At the end of the week, we empty the buckets and read the nice things our friends left for us when they filled our buckets.