Have You Filled a Bucket Today? A Guide to Daily Happiness for Kids

by Carol McCloud

Paperback, 2006

Status

Available

Call number

170.83

Publication

Ferne Press (2006), Edition: 1, 32 pages

Description

Through sweet, simple prose and vivid illustrations, this book encourages positive behavior as children see how very easy and rewarding it is to express kindness, appreciation, and love on a daily basis.

User reviews

LibraryThing member hewlettb
This book carries a great message for young readers, about the value of kindness. The way the story is told makes the reader the main character. The value of "filling others buckets" is taught to the reader by expressing how this makes people feel. The message in the book is timeless but the
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illustrations are directed at children. The only thing I did not enjoy about this book was the fact that when filling the bucket of handicapped people, their buckets are in wheelchairs, thought that was a little tacky. Also was surprised to see that the author runs her motivational speaking business out of Brighton, MI.
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LibraryThing member Jourdon
Through the children’s book, Have You Filled A Bucket Today?, the abstract concept of self-esteem is introduced by the metaphor of an imaginary bucket in need of being filled. The author and illustrator teach the readers that expressing kindness, appreciation, and love on a daily basis fills
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everyone’s bucket around them. This book is a wonderful tool for families and teachers to give kids a visual way to think about kindness toward others. Students make a connection to their feelings with the bucket illustrations and learn how their actions affect others. Although there are no character descriptions or climax, the book is instructive on how to make our world a better place and allows children to immediately realize the consequences of their actions on others. Have You Filled A Bucket Today? is a useful tool to express a complicated, abstract idea about self esteem and leaves readers with the challenge of filling their own bucket and others’ buckets. This book is recommended for teachers, parents, and children under the age of 12 because of the engaging illustrations and the clarity of the bucketfilling concept.
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LibraryThing member nlevanen09
Genre: This is a good example of fantasy because it explains being nice and doing good things to others in terms of having a bucket. When you do or say nice things you fill the bucket but when you hurt or are mean you take from other peoples buckets.
Stars are for theme
Age: Primary and Intermediate
LibraryThing member natasha.bevis
This is a modern fantasy book because it describes that everyone in the world carries around with them an invisible bucket, which in reality is not true. Yet the idea that a magical buckets contains the feelings of onself makes it easy to understand how we can feel when we feel good about
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ourselves, when we are hurt, or even when we make fun of others. The theme is beautifully woven into the idea of buckets (feelings) that can be filled or emptied out by what we say or do for others.
Level: Primary
Stars: Theme
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LibraryThing member jckeen
Great book to teach elementary students (and older) a philosophy of being kind and helping others. Many schools have adopted this book as a way to disseminate and nurture a caring environment.
LibraryThing member CrystalRushton
This book suggests the concept that each of us has an invisible bucket and we can make choices to help fill others buckets or to empty our own. For instance, we can fill others buckets by giving them compliments or by helping them in some way. This book is amazing way to teach students about how
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treating one another nicely can make everyone feel good and happy.
Have You Filled a Bucket Today? is a wonderful book to introduce to early elementary students early on in the beginning of the school year. “Bucket-filling” can be used as a strategy in the classroom to teach students to give compliments to one another, to provide one another with assistance, and to create better citizens out of our students as well. It is a wonderful way to teach students ways to make others happy and themselves too.
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LibraryThing member Rita6
What a wonderful book that absolutely everyone can learn from. Students of all ages can practice filling up each other buckets while building up theirs and others self-esteem. The style this book used was more of a nursery rhyme, yet all ages can enjoy.
LibraryThing member Trina08
This is an amazing book for teachers to use in the first two weeks of school. This book is about people who are bucket filler and bucket dipper. The moral of the story is for the students to understand that the that it is kind to be a bucket filer than a bucket dipper. This help the students
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understand the type of relationships we should have in the classroom.
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LibraryThing member nkertz
thiss is great book to show children how to behave properly and treat others with kindness and love. the illustrations are captivating and give stronger meaning to the words.
LibraryThing member Khoffy
I saw this book incorporated into the management and design of a second grade classroom and it was incredibly interesting! The teacher read the book to our students and held a discussion about how our words and actions affect each other. There are also many valuable ways to extend this book into
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the management of the classroom, for example giving students paper buckets to color for bucket filling behavior.
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LibraryThing member Meg_Harrison
I use this at the start of each year in my primary classroom to help students understand what "being kind" really means. This provides some strong examples of how doing kind acts is actually a way to make yourself feel good! This is a more modern interpretation of the timeless story about the "Warm
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Fuzzies" and real buckets can be used to help children visually see a bucket being filled.
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LibraryThing member hhuget
Have You Filled a Bucket Today? is a great way to introduce behavior and kindness to a new classroom of students. The story gives concrete examples of what kindness looks like and feels like for everyone involved. Paired with a discussion about how to act in the classroom, this book can be used to
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set up behavior and community expectations for the entire year.
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LibraryThing member Ginger_Malone
I don't like this book too much, but it teaches kids how to make everyday happy and productive. I would use it to teach vocabulary.
LibraryThing member paulina.chapa
Teaches how to be mannered, respectful and polite to others. Kids love the illustrations and how engaging it is.
LibraryThing member blt012
This book teaches how to be respectful to others, you never know if someone is having a bad day. Students would love it because of the way it is written, towards them.
LibraryThing member blt012
This book teaches how to be respectful to others, you never know if someone is having a bad day. Students would love it because of the way it is written, towards them.
LibraryThing member lexibaldwin
This book reminds us to do good things each day. This helps children learn their place in the community and how they need to do good to help out each day.
LibraryThing member awalls4
I absolutely love this book! I babysit frequently and this has been a common book to find on the bookshelves of the elementary aged children I watch. I like this book because of its central message. The central message of the book is the “pay it forward” concept. The idea of the bucket is that
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everyone carries around their own bucket that includes our feelings. When our bucket is full we are happy and when it is empty it is the opposite, we are sad. When we do kind things for others we are filling their bucket because it makes them happy, but we are also filling our own buckets because we are happy we had the chance to help someone. I think this book is a great book to introduce in the classroom. This theme can be incorporated into the classroom to create a positive learning environment. I think the book portrays such a strong central message and that is why I like the book so much.
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LibraryThing member molliewaugh
Wow! I loved this book! The overall message of the book was spectacular and I feel as if this book is a great reminder, even for adults, on how to treat people. (Sub note: Because we all know, some adults forget how to be nice! ☺) The book suggested that we all have an invisible bucket. Now, we
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can either make positive choices and full up others buckets up or we can make negative choice and empty them. The text is fabulous! For example, one of my favorite quotes was, “A bucket filler is a loving, caring person who says or does nice things that make others feel special. When you make someone feel special, you are filling a bucket.” It also explained that, “a bucket dipper is someone who says or does mean things that make others feel bad.” As you can see, the book addresses very important subjects/issues. I also liked that the book gave specific examples as to how someone can fill up a bucket. For example, a simple “Hi!” can help fill up someone’s bucket. The book also emphasized that when we fill someone else’s bucket up, we are actually filling our own because when we make others happy, we become happy! I also liked the illustrations. They went perfectly with the text and did not overwhelm the page. As mentioned before, the message of the book is very powerful and it teaches readers to be kind and generous towards others.
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LibraryThing member sarah.vargo
This is a great book on self esteem and how we can teach children to love themselves and those around them.
LibraryThing member kbuffum13
This is a story that uses our emotions in a metaphor that we all carry around invisible buckets. With those invisible buckets if they are full we are happy and sad if the are empty. In this way we can be bucket fillers who cheer people up or bucket dippers who are bullies to others.
LibraryThing member Fjola
The cover of this book has been staring at me all year from the shelf it's displayed on in my son's classroom, until I finally picked it up at the library. I was so ready to not like it and dismiss it as simplistic, but I have to admit that the metaphor of the bucket is not only "dead on" but also
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so wonderfully easy for kids to relate to. It immediately caught my 5 year old's attention that the "filling" goes both ways. He was quite eager to provide his own personal input on various ways to fill other people's buckets, no explanations needed. Picturing bullies as " dipping" into buckets was very enlightening as well. Of particular interest was to think that "dipping" doesn't help fill your bucket at all. I'm sure we'll both carry the idea of the "invisible bucket" at the back of our head for a while ...
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LibraryThing member cpaavola
This is a sweet book that teaches the importance of kindness to children through a metaphor about filling up each other's buckets by saying nice things, giving smiles and helping each other. The illustrations in this book are cartoon-ish and look like they are either drawn with colored pencil and
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water colors or were done on a computer. They are bright, colorful and bring more lightheartedness to the lesson. This book is excellent in teaching the idea of being kind to others and a different way of thinking about the concept of happiness and how we treat others. Teachers could have their students all make a bucket and carry it around the classroom for a day and allow students to actually fill others buckets with kind notes and at the end of the day each child can look at the kindness in their buckets. Then reflect on how the activity made them feel.
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LibraryThing member KyleeO
Perfect read for students to learn how to treat others. Bucket filling is a concept where simple acts of kindness can fill someone elses bucket but being mean to someone will empty someone elses bucket. We use this concept with preschool and kindergarten students to encourage bucket filling duties
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throughout the day.
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LibraryThing member SABC
Encourages positive behavior by using the concept of an invisible bucket to show children how easy and rewarding it is to be kind, etc.

Awards

London Book Festival (Honorable Mention — Children's Book — 2007)

Language

Original language

English

Physical description

10.5 x 8 inches

ISBN

0978507517 / 9780978507510
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