Sunday, August 31, 2014

Weekend Warriors: How Full is Your Bucket

It is time for Weekend Warriors: Back to School Cool Part 2!

Today's back to school cool idea comes in part from my principal.

I'm sure you have heard of the book, How Full is Your Bucket? About ten years ago my past principal bought each one of us on her staff a copy of this book. It was such a new idea that made sense and it was our focus for that school year...

Well, flash forward to this week. I get back to work to see this in our Teacher's Lounge:
Can you handle the cuteness?

Close up on my personal bucket....
So I have seen boards like this in classrooms, but never in a staff room. In case you were wondering, yes, I have the best principal EVER!

So the idea is that each week we are to fill out one paper to put in a colleagues bucket. What you can't see in the pictures above is the larger bucket filled with papers and pens so you can just walk up and fill something out.

On Thursday, our first staff meeting of the year each teacher received this:

The most important thing I want to focus on is the two versions of children's books about filling your bucket.
These are both excellent beginning of the school year books...and then the kind of book that you read as a refresher periodically during the year.

Personally, I like the "Have You Filled a Bucket Today?" a tiny bit more for kinder. I think the illustrations make this slightly abstract concept more concrete for the little ones.

Pictured below is a page from "Have You Filled a Bucket Today?" I like how the characters are actually holding their buckets.   This page alone could be a week long discussion in my opinion.

How Full is your Bucket is good too because the story shows a boy, Felix, who basically is just having a bad day. His bucket is drip by drip spilling out and he has to learn how to deal with this....spoiler alert: the story ends with a full bucket for Felix.

About a day after my staff meeting I see this on Instagram:

Um, will I be doing this next week? YES!!! This picture is from One Fab Teacher. 

Can I say that this girl fills my bucket on an on-going basis and we don't even know each other. If you don't follow her on Instagram you need to. I am also following her blog now too! She is so positive and I just love her. It wasn't a surprise that she is doing a bucket filling activity with her first graders. But seriously, following her will make you smile. And on top of that...does she not make the cutest signs? 

Then I found an adorable sorting freebie about bucket filling from Khrys Bosland, so I am set for next week!

I have a feeling I will be posting more about bucket filling in the future. But as you start this school year.... or even if you already have.... I think bucket filling is a great topic of discussion to have with your class....at any grade level.

Now stop by some of my sweet friends to see what Back to School ideas they have for you! 

And don't forget to go HERE to enter my 2 GIVEAWAYS!!

2 comments:

  1. Christy your principal is pretty AWESOME!! I think that's such a great idea to have everyone's bucket in the the teacher's lounge. At my previous school we had teacher buckets next to our doors and it was a good thought but hard to fill buckets to teachers on the other side of the building. WOW for you all to get your own bucket is pretty cool!!

    You have really TRULY filled my bucket Christy. Your kind words mean so much. People like you keep me doing what I LOVE to do make people feel good!! I'm going to bed smiling what a fab way to start my week.

    ((HUGS))
    Tiffany

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  2. LOVE this post!! And glad Miss May is back on IG!! :)

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