Review of the book: Have You Filled a Bucket Today?Order from Chapters/Indigo, Amazon.ca or Amazon.com*
From the Publisher:
This heartwarming book encourages positive behavior by using the concept of an invisible bucket to show children how easy and rewarding it is to express kindness, appreciation, and love by “filling buckets.”
The updated and revised 10th anniversary edition of this best-selling, award-winning, 32-page picture book will help readers better understand that “bucket dipping” is a negative behavior, not a permanent label. It also explains that it’s possible to fill or dip into our own buckets.
Description:
Many will be familiar with this title from its early days. This updated version is worthy of a new look. The 10th Anniversary revised edition has three major changes from the first edition (2006):
- changing the terms “bully” to “bullying” and “bucket dipper” to “bucket dipping” ensures that the terms are seen as changeable behaviours, making the terms less negative and not a label for someone to assume.
- adding that it is possible to dip into your own bucket, as well as filling it (our own actions and thoughts about ourselves [internal dialogue] contribute to our bucket).
- the youngest children rely on caregivers to fill their buckets, but everyone has a choice, and we can all learn to fill our own buckets.
The book is a powerful way to show/teach children that our actions and words affect others. It is a basic and powerful title about character development and the impact (both positive and negative) that our words and actions have on those around us, as well as on ourselves.
My Experience:
My oldest (nearing 4) 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 ‘dipping’ 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 “filling buckets” and “dipping into buckets” rather than lecturing her using too many words. This would be a great book to use with all kids – it can be easily expanded for older children (though there is a more advanced version for kids over age 8 and two other simplified versions [one for babies and toddlers and one for toddlers and young kids]) but 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 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 – had they not revised the language (bully –> bullying and bucket dipper –> bucket dipping), I would have mentioned the potential for negative labelling and not descriptions of a changeable behaviour. The revised version presents this in a much more positive light and shows that anyone can change their behaviour
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 both filled and ‘dipped’ into people’s buckets
- discuss the importance of filling our own buckets (and not dipping) by beginning to discuss the impact of our internal dialogue
- discuss at the beginning of the day and plan how to ‘fill buckets’ that day
- review the day at bedtime. Place actions in the context of ‘filling’ and ‘dipping’ to give behaviours a context beyond ‘right and wrong’. Discuss the potential impact of ‘dipping’ on those affected by the behavior(s) and also the impact of the filling
- have kids draw/visually represent their own idea of filling a bucket
- get some mini-buckets (or make with yogurt tubs, etc.) to create an object lesson. Fill with positive notes, etc.
Other books in this series that I have reviewed:
- Fill a Bucket (ages 1 – 5)
- Growing up with a Bucket Full of Happiness (ages 9+)
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