Fill a Bucket: A Guide to Daily Happiness for Young Children by Carol McCloud – Book Review

From the Publisher:

This award-winning and simplified prequel to Have You Filled a Bucket Today? is the perfect gift for anyone with little ones they love.  When children have their buckets filled and learn how they can fill other people’s buckets too, they understand how special, valuable, and capable they are.

Description:

The main difference between this edition and the more advanced Have You Filled a Bucket Today? is that it does not introduce the topic of bucket-dipping (emptying other’s or one’s own bucket due to negative actions/words).  It emphasizes the importance of filling buckets and is an excellent beginning primer for discussing the impact of words/actions on others and self.

My Experience:

The book includes instructions for fun song (to the tune of Frere Jacques or Are you sleeping?), which my daughter loved and I have caught her singing a few times since – a sure sign of a winner. Nearing 4, she really responded well to this book.  She got it after the first read-through.  We spent a long time afterwards generating examples of ‘bucket-filling’ and placed it in the context of her day.  She was able to articulate several examples that were relevant and proved to us that she “got it”.  We have come up with a plan to remind her throughout the day about the importance of “filling buckets”.  This is a superb book to use with all toddlers – it can be easily expanded for older kids (though there are more advanced versions for kids over age 4 and another simplified version for babies) and can be scaffolded for all ages.  It would be a great support to use with children who are impulsive, struggling with bullying behaviours, have a negative self-dialogue, etc.  It is a powerful resource to have on hand as part of a pre-school or kindergarten classroom, home or community library.  I highly recommend this title as a primer for discussing with children how our words and actions impact others!

     Likes:

• simple, positive message presents to children how we all have feelings and that our actions/words affect our own feelings and those of the people we come into contact with
• bright, colourful illustrations effectively showcase the message
• the point is stated and re-stated in multiple ways to ensure clarity of message

     Dislikes:

• none – I was originally wondering why some of the inanimate objects like dolls and teddy bears were shown as having buckets, but I have since concluded that their purpose is to enable kids to practice being kind to them in their imaginative play, etc.

Why/How Use it with kids:

• use this as a basic primer to begin discussions of values and character development
• have children give examples of how they have filled other people’s buckets
• discuss at the beginning of the day and plan how to ‘fill buckets’ that day
• review the day at bedtime. What examples of bucket filling can the child think of ?
• have kids draw/visually represent their own idea of filling a bucket
• Get your own bucket(s) as an object lesson and think of ways to fill them (write notes, etc.)

Other books in this series that I have reviewed:

• Have You Filled a Bucket Today? (ages 4-9)
• Growing up with a Bucket Full of Happiness (ages 9+)

About the Authors: