Are you familiar with the Bucket Filler books? I’m in love with them. I was first exposed to the Bucket Fillers when I heard one of them read while helping in my daughter’s classroom. When I was approached by Bucket Fillers to do a giveaway at Meaningful Mama, I just had to say yes. These books fit in great with my character development series (see my character development tab). I came up with this bucket filler activity for kids, and my kids have responded so amazingly well. The books really resinated with them, and you could see an attitude change in their hearts before we even did our bucket filler activity. I still decided to move forward with making our own buckets to fill because I like the thought of them having a very tangible visual picture of what happens when people are kind and thoughtful to others.
If you are unfamiliar with the Bucket Filler books, let me give you a brief description. The concept of the books is that everyone is born with an invisible bucket. This bucket can be filled up with acts of kindness, pleasantness and thoughtfulness. We want to be bucket fillers. We want to be the type of people that treat others with humanity and love. There are bucket dippers in the world who want to take from the buckets of others, but these book teaches us to be fillers. Ultimately, we want to reach our kids heart on these moral issues, and I think these books help do just that.
Bucket Filler Books
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Have You Filled a Bucket Today? A Guide to Daily Happiness for Kids
Fill a Bucket: A Guide to Daily Happiness for Young Children
Bucket Filling from A to Z: The Key to Being Happy
Growing Up with a Bucket Full of Happiness: Three Rules for a Happier Life
Will You Fill My Bucket? Daily Acts of Love Around the World
Halle and Tiger with their Bucketfilling Family
My Bucket Filling Journal: 30 Days to a Happier Life
Bucket Fillers Giveaway
Perhaps I can help fill your bucket by offering up a fabulous giveaway. My friends at Bucket Fillers str giving away the books you see pictured and listed above. Further, you will receive a Bucket Filler prize pack valued at $100. This will be an assortment of Bucket Filler merchandise. That makes this giveaway valued at $160. I am joining up with my friends Paula from Beauty through Imperfection and Becky from Your Modern Family to bring you this giveaway. It’s simple to enter since this is a Pinterest follow giveaway. Just follow us on Pinterest, and one lucky winner will be chosen from all the entries. This giveaway is available for residents of the United States, age 18 and older. Good luck. I know someone’s bucket will be filled when I pick the winner.
Bucket Filler Activity for Kids
The bucket filler activity I decided to do with my kids is a visual representation of all the books are trying to accomplish. There is not reward attached to the activity. The reward is verbal affirmation as well as adding a tangible picture of what it looks like to fill a bucket. The other reward is the good feelings they receive as buckets are being filled in our home. Thats the best prize of all.
Materials Need to Make Bucket Filler Buckets
- Buckets
- Letter Stickers – I did 1″ for the name and 1/2″ for the words.
- Pom Poms – I had assorted colors and sizes. There is no prize attached, so making sure they are uniform doesn’t matter.
The kids add their name and the phrase “is a bucket filler” on the bucket. When I see them doing something that is kind, helpful or thoughtful, I add a pom pom to their bucket. They can also report bucket filling moments they see from their siblings. I am delighted to hear them announce things like, “Kenzie filled my bucket. She just volunteered to clean up my mess for me.” This seems to be happening more and more since we started this activity about a week ago.
I hope you will encourage bucket filling in your home. You can do it through the books, this activity or by simply modeling what it is like to treat people how you would like to be treated. I want to raise up kids that are making a difference in this world. I am hoping to build into my children in such a way that they become the change we would all like to see. I want to inspire other parents to help motivate the next generation in humanity and kindness. Will you join me?
Here are two other blogging moms joining me in this mission and giveaway. I hope you will check out their posts that inspire kindness.
More Lessons on Kindness for Kids
Lessons in Kindness for Kids by Beauty Through Imperfection
Teaching Kids About Kindness by Your Modern Family
Hi! I absolutely LOVE this idea.
Too bad I live in Canada and cannot participate to the giveaway 🙁
I will run to buy some of these books… I am always looking for educational ways to teach values to my son. This is just brilliant!!
Luisa
I am so happy to have stumbled on your site…I have been looking so hard for a lot of the ideas you have put in print. I am always trying to build my 3 son’s self esteem and how to find and do positive things together. I had never heard of “filling my bucket” until today and am so glad that I have another resource for positive loving parenting. I know you will probably have a ton of entrants into your giveaway, so the odds are not in my favor. The good thing is that we have a great local library and if they don’t have a book- they will try to locate it within our state (which is MIchigan) The fact that you included a picture allows me to look up the titles really easily. Which is fortunate when I come across articles like this, with a good book recommendation. Thanks for sharing advice, real life experience and your time. I plan on using a lot of your wonderful suggestions with my boys…they will love the experiences, I just know it!
Thank you so much for writing. I am so, so sorry it’s taken so long to write back. I’m glad you found my blog too. I really do hope you take the time to find these books. They’ve made a difference in our family, and I’m hoping that translates to all my kids come into contact with in this life. So glad you are here. You sound like someone who might be interested in my character development series too, so make sure you hover over the tab or click there to learn more. Blessings!
Fun idea and cute project for kids to work on. Thanks for the clever activity!
Thanks so much. I appreciate it!