Bucket Filling at Central Primary

by Nicole McPhate for APSD

At Central Primary, the students and families are sharing kindness in a new way. Through the use of the book, Have You Filled a Bucket Today? and with the encouragement of their teachers, students are growing as positive influences on their families and community through acts of kindness. Central Primary’s principal, Melinda Morris, shared the students excitement as well as her own about the project. The book is used in the classroom setting to explain how kindness, appreciation and love can fill someone up and have positive effects for both the giver and the receiver.

Each classroom has the book and a “bucket-filling” backpack that contains a book for home and a log for the students to share about the experience. The students take turns taking home the backpack over the weekend and completing projects or acts that benefit others. Once they have completed their turn, they are encouraged to journal about the experience in the log provided. Two examples Morris gave were baking cookies for the neighbor next door, or just going to talk with a neighbor down the street. After each student has had the backpack for a weekend, the whole process starts over.

According to several teachers and Ms. Morris, this project is helping students and parents focus on the positives instead of the negatives. They have experienced a great response from both students and parents. Morris shared that “it is helping them as a family, they are completing projects together to fill others buckets, and the students love it.”

For more information on the bucket filling concept, you can visit their website: http://www.bucketfillers101.com/index.php