Sycamore Springs Students are Bucket Fillers!

One of my favorite reads to bring awareness to #KINDNESS in our immediate community is "How Full is Your Bucket?" by Rath and Reckmeyer and "Have you Filled a Bucket Today?" by Carol McCloud.

The month of October was spent exploring and deepening our understanding for how to create communities of kindness. The lessons I prepared were adjusted to be age appropriate activities for every class in our building and let me tell you 1 counselor reaching 800 students ages 4 to 11 is definitely a challenge, but WOW does the hard work pay off! My Bucket overflowed by the kindness and acts of compassion I witnessed and the genuine words of caring and appreciation that my Sycamore Springs students demonstrated for each other and their teachers. We learned the important language of what it means to "fill" someone else's invisible bucket through acts of kindness.

Check out this 2:13 video called Color Your World with Kindness created by A Better World that had the exact impact I was hoping to supplement the lesson!

In my primary grades, we played games of non-verbal acts of kindness charades and group activities about recognizing Bucket Filling and what it might mean to be a Bucket "Dipper." Here is the link to the labels I used for this activity (thank you Stephanie Van Horn).

For a link to free lesson plans, sorting cards and everything Bucket Fillers for teachers and counselors click HERE.

Every student in the school created hand prints with statements for how they are everyday Bucket Fillers in their school-wide community. Check out this picture of our brand new hallway mural! Next time you are on campus, check out the mural and read a few hand prints...you might just tear up.

Finally, for my intermediates, I decided that I wanted the students to really get some feedback from their peers about their individual Bucket Filling gifts. WOW! I was impressed by the response and their interest in taking the activity so seriously! I adapted the idea I got from the help of The Handy School Counselor and the Pat on the Back activity. Once we had read the book, watched the video and had thoughtfully discussed, I asked each student to choose a piece of decorative paper that "spoke to them." They thought this was an interesting way to start the activity, but definitely generated interest. After placing their name on the paper, we then rotated the paper around the classroom and each of their peers wrote thoughtful words specific to each student's Bucket Filling gifts. You could have heard a pin drop as the letters made their way back to their original owners and the smiles appeared as they read the important and thoughtful words their peers wrote about each of them.