A Little Bucket Fun Giveaway!

Hello Kinder Friends,

I was kind of excited when I learned that there was a new bucket book coming out.

I started using How Full Is Your Bucket For Kids two years ago in my classroom. At first I was not sure if this would work for my classroom but I decided to give it a try. And here we are two years later and I am still using this in my class. So naturally I was excited to see that there is another book coming out in this series. So, I would like to offer you a little Bucket Filling Fun too. From July 13-14 new followers and old, if you leave a comment on this post I will use the random number generator to pick a winner of 1 Bucket book and my Bucket Filling Packet. I will pick the winner on the 15th. The new bucket book is in preorder status right now so it may take just a little bit longer to get your hands on it.

Here is one of my posts from the past on Bucket Filling...

We are moving right along and having a good time with our Classroom Community Bucket Filler! This is probably one of my favorite things in Kindergarten over the past few years. When I found the book How Full Is Your Bucket For Kids I knew I was going to give this a try.

 



 I read the book several times last year as we were establishing our classroom community. My favorite addition on one of the readings was to add a visual element to the story as I read through the book.

 

The addition of the cups and water provided the children with a visual to help them see when buckets were filled and spilled throughout the story.

 This year I was excited when a teacher friend let me borrow another bucket filling book. And I think this one is my new favorite!

In our classroom we fill a community bucket so actually we are working on a goal together. I find that this is much easier than having to keep up with filling buckets for each and every child in class. I wanted to be able to work on a goal as a team so that this activity could help us build a classroom community. I really like how we are all working towards something together and we learn that it takes each and every one of us to meet the goal so we learn to help and encourage each other as we fill our bucket. I have always started with a small bucket so that we could reach our first goal pretty quick. When we reach our goal as a class we decide how we will celebrate. We usually celebrate with a special activity. To me, a classroom bucket filling system works because I can't be tied down to filling 22 buckets all day long. What works for you? I hope you let me know!

 

How Full Is Your Bucket?

 

Hello Kinder Friends,

We are moving right along and having a good time with our Classroom Community Bucket Filler! This is probably one of my favorite things in Kindergarten over the past few years. When I found the book How Full Is Your Bucket For Kids I knew I was going to give this a try.

 



 

I read the book several times last year as we were establishing our classroom community. Mt favorite addition on one of the readings was to add a visual element to the story as I read through the book.

 

 

The addition of the cups and water provided the children with a visual to help them see when buckets were filled and spilled throughout the story.

 

 



This year I was excited when a teacher friend let me borrow another bucket filling book. And I think this one is my new favorite!

In our classroom we fill a community bucket so actually we are working on a goal together. I find that this is much easier than having to keep up with filling buckets for each and every child in class. I wanted to be able to work on a goal as a team so that this activity could help us build a classroom community. I really like how we are all working towards something together and we learn that it takes each and every one of us to meet the goal so we learn to help and encourage each other as we fill our bucket. I have always started with a small bucket so that we could reach our first goal pretty quick. When we reach our goal as a class we decide how we will celebrate. We usually celebrate with a special activity.

 

 



My Bucket Is Filled!

We have had so many milestones and good moments in Kindergarten the past few weeks it started me thinking about our bucket filler activity. We read this book earlier in the year, picked a bucket to fill, set our goals to fill the bucket and then just started working towards our goals. 

We worked and worked and worked earning marbles to fill our bucket until finally we made it! Our bucket was full. We just could not decide how we were going to celebrate filling our bucket until...

As we were reading the totally cute Christmas with the Mousekins we read about gingerbread snails and we wanted to make them. Soooo, we decided that this was the perfect activity to celebrate twelve weeks of goal reaching, bucket filling, hard work. 

If you want to make your own gingerbread snails all you need is some cinnamon, sugar, raisins and breadsticks! 

You dip your breadstick in butter, roll in cinnamon and sugar, make a snail shape, add your eye and bake! 

My New Bucket Filler!

I have posted a lot about my bucket filling experiences with my class this year. I have read the book twice and have done a few activities with it as well. I have to say the message in the book has stuck in our heads and hearts and my class refers to this often as we work towards a classroom goal of filling OUR bucket. So naturally, as I was shopping, I cam across a tiny pumpkin bucket and thought of my class. I had to get it! I am going to transfer the marbles that we have earned to the new bucket and review a few counting strategies along the way. And this will be our bucket for the month of October. We are more than half way to our goal but we are having a hard time thinking about exactly what kind of celebration we are going to have. All we know is we want it to be special the kids tell me. 

If you need more information about filling your bucket, please use the search feature on the blog. I hope you have a full bucket this weekend! 

My Bucket Is Filled!

I earlier posted about reading How Full Is Your Bucket for Kids. After that reading I told the children that we would probably read the book again. I knew I would want to read it once my five new students were settled in my class. Since it was my second time to read the book, I was able to add a little bit more to it the second time around. As I read the book, and as a bucket was either being filled or spilled, I was able to make the visual connection by using clear cups, colored water and a pipette. This helped me to demonstrate how our actions or the actions of others, can either fill a bucket or slowly drip by drip empty a bucket. As the water moved back and forth, the children were silent and we were able to talk about what we observed and make the connection to understanding how that happened. This was a very successful addition to the book and it created a very meaningful community building activity for me and the children in my class. When I discovered this book this summer I was not clear how I would use the bucket system in my class but I knew I wanted to use it somehow. I decided on a community bucket that we would fill with marbles. I found the smallest bucket possible to use in the beginning. My message was simple... it will take us all to fill the bucket. We will work together to fill it and we will celebrate our collective goal when we reach it. I am happy to say we are half way there and we all know it takes us all doing our part...including me. They always say third time is a charm and when I read it a third time, I will make sure that my water level drip by drip is exactly the way it is in the book but sometimes you see a "teachable moment" and you just go for it! 

As we finished the book, I asked the kids to spread out and get ready for the next activity as I prepared apples for a graphing activity. We all agreed we did not want to taste brown apples so I would be busy for a few minutes cutting apples. As I was preparing the apples, I could hear some bickering and some good problem solving language and when I turned around I saw my new class hand in hand in a circle waiting for me and actually they had planned a place for me to sit to taste apples with them. I stood there silent for a minute and realized they were working together and working their way through a few disagreements among some of the children but all in all they achieved the goal...and once again my bucket was filled.

 As we moved in to our tasting and graphing activity, our helper dropped all of our fresh and clean apples on the floor. There was a few moments of silence and then we all laughed...together for a long time. After washing apples and finally tasting and graphing our favorites, I realized I am so lucky to be the teacher with the invisible bucket over her head that is dripping by the minute, not because my bucket is being spilled but because it simply is overflowing.

How Full Is Your Bucket?

I have been hesitating about doing this activity due to the looming class size dilemma. I am not positive that this is actually my entire class that I have now and I am certain things will change in the near future. I have had a difficult time kind of holding back and not bonding like I normally would because I wanted to make sure that everyone was actually present for a "team building" activity. During the day on Friday we had one of those teachable moments and I had to pull out my new favorite book because it could wait no longer.

How Full Is Your Bucket? For Kids 

I made sure the children knew that  I would probably be reading it again. As we read we learned about how to fill a bucket and how to spill a bucket. We decided as a team we would work towards filling a class bucket together. Once our class bucket is full, we will all celebrate in some small way. We realized it would take all of us to accomplish this goal. As I ended the discussion (and finally felt like I got this off my chest) I asked who was "IN" and as we placed one hand on top of each other, squeezing and laughing to fit each of our hands in I realized I was finally "IN" too...