Student Contributor: K. Schlagel
The tool is used for students to give a compliment/uplift their classmates. The teacher could read a book that has to do with bucket filling and then students will create their bucket for classmates to fill. It is helpful for classroom environment and confidence.
The tool should be used weekly. Students will be able to create their buckets with materials provided, and then will be given classmate names. The names received would be the classmates that they will be writing a bucket filler note to for the first day. After the first day, it is important to encourage students to continue filling their classmate’s buckets throughout the week. It’s important for students to know that these are supposed to be serious. Compliments, uplifting messages, words of encouragement, etc. are all great things to fill buckets with. I had such a great time using this tool and all of the students really loved it also. As I peaked through some notes that students made, my heart was so warm and I know that theirs were too.
I placed it in the supportive phase because the tool supports students and encourages them to be kind to their classmates. I also think it can be used for the other two phases as well, depending on the classroom environment that is already established. If you are having problems with students not getting along, this tool could be helpful for students to come together and be kind to each other. It could also be preventative if used from the beginning of the school year to set a tone of how we treat each other.
More Information –
Tool Source: Pinterest
https://pin.it/3oykTvM
I tried this testing tool for a 4th grade class of 21 students in a rural area. I used this tool by first doing a read-aloud of How Full is Your Bucket? By Tom Rath. I read through the book and we discussed different parts of the book and what that means for us. They discussed what the “bucket” represents, what a “bucket filler is” and how to fill someone’s bucket, along with what a “bucket drainer” is and what causes a bucket to drip. The students discussed what kinds of things can “fill a bucket” and times in their life when someone had filled their bucket. They identified how they can make someone’s day better by being kind and reflected on how when we are kind to others and ourselves, it makes our day better. This book can be used with any grade in elementary school because the simple idea of being kind and encouraging to those around you always applies. I had the students create their own bucket by folding colorful paper into an origami bucket to decorate. They spent time writing at least 3 “bucket filler” comments on a piece of paper and made sure every student received one by having students pick a name out of the jar of popsicle sticks. The students absolutely loved giving these kind notes to their classmates, they did not want to stop and one student even asked me if they could bring a bucket and “fill their bucket” in a different class. We discussed how we can fill someone’s bucket any day to anyone. I noticed throughout the day that students looked for ways they could be kind verbally to a classmate. I only used this for one day, but I am sure using this consistently would be extremely beneficial.
I performed this tool in a second-grade classroom with 20 students in a suburban area. This tool was relatively easy to prepare and was super fun and easy to teach and use. I used this tool as a corrective phase tool to teach my students how powerful their words are and how kind, encouraging words can make someone feel really good inside, and how unkind words towards each other can make us not feel good inside. The successes that I noticed with this tool were amazing! After introducing the tool, I had students saying things to other students and to myself that were “bucket-filling sentences” because they knew it would fill up the other person’s bucket and make them feel really good inside. The students definitely understood what their role was and showed me throughout the whole day that they wanted to make others feel good inside and wanted to spread kindness! To make it even better, I think we could give students additional bucket-filling cards to write to whoever they wanted throughout the week at school to keep the positive mindset going!