filling buckets

i am so lucky to have partnered with CH for a writing project this year. she is working on her masters in reading and approached me with a project that would involve character education and writing. she mentioned bucketfillers and i told her that i had done them with my first graders at SSE. i told her about all the quirks of my class - kinders, inclusion, attention issues, poverty, etc. - and she wanted to try. i was concerned, but hopeful that the project would get my kids excited about writing. i read the book - how full is your bucket for kids - to them. they enjoyed it, but it certainly wasn't as good a read as the original book. the next day, i read the original book - have you filled a bucket today - and they were hooked. we had a long discussion about the kinds of things we can do to fill each other's buckets. we colored buckets and taped them to paper cups. then i created a bulletin board with all of the buckets. CH came to our room many mornings and helped the kids fill out bucket slips for each other. the enthusiasm and joy built each day. we taught the kids how to take pictures and let them see examples of good and bad pictures. they were easily able to discern the difference and began taking pictures of each other demonstrating bucketfiller behaviors. not only did our kids write bucketfiller slips to each other, we had them write ideas of how someone could fill a bucket in response to story starters, such as "words are powerful. i use my words..." CH assisted every student to write their ideas and illustrate them. then we scanned the images and built a voicethread. this week we will record our voices on the voicethread. it is impossible to fully describe the joy and enthusiasm in our room that i attribute to this project. our kids are doing good deeds. they are trying so hard to improve behaviors. they recognize when someone's bucket gets dumped out. and they want very much to fill each others' buckets!