Guiding Questions for Parents.

Definition: The ability to feel what others are feeling and the action of trying to help them with their troubles. In short: Feel what others feel. Summary: Everyone carries an invisible bucket. Your bucket has one purpose, to hold good thoughts and good feelings about yourself. We feel sad when our bucket is empty and happy when our bucket is full. We can be bucket fillers when we help others feel good. Or we can dip into our buckets until there’s nothing left when we’re mean to others. So, the message of this book is to be a bucket filler, because when you fill someone else’s bucket, you fill your own bucket, too. Lesson Objectives:

Students are more inclined to try to fill their buckets with acts of kindness, and less inclined to empty their buckets with meanness.

Guiding Questions:

Everyday, all around the world everyone carries an _________________________.
How does a person fill a bucket?
What does it mean when a person’s bucket is empty?
Can you fill someone else’s bucket? How?
Can someone fill your bucket? How?
When a person “bucket dips” into someone else’s bucket, what happens?
Name three ways you could fill your bucket today.
Why do you think people who are bucket fillers are happier than those who empty others’ buckets?
What are some things you like to do to fill the buckets of your family members and classmates?
Is your bucket full, half-full, or empty right now?

🌿 Virtue Connection: Compassion means feeling what another feels and choosing to act.

Hands-On Practice

Activities for This Story.

Activity: Students create a paper “bucket” by stapling or gluing two construction papers together, leaving the top side open. They make a “handle” for their bucket, attach it to their bucket and decorate what they made. Students are instructed to fill out a paper strip describing an act of kindness. They put it in the bucket. The buckets are displayed in the classroom so students can have access to them. At the end of the week, they take turns reading what’s in their bucket to the class or another student.

Materials needed: The resource video; light colored construction paper, 3 sheets for each student; some staplers; glue; scissors (one pair for every 2 students); writing and decorating materials; a place to display the “buckets” where students can have access to them; rulers (one for every 2 students)

Directions: Introduce the video, explaining that this is about filling a “bucket” with acts of kindness. Show the video. Before showing the video, arrange the construction materials so pairs of students can access what they need to make their bucket. After showing and discussing the video, explain that this is a weeklong activity in which students will record acts of kindness every day on strips of paper and store them in their paper buckets. At the end of the week, students will read what they wrote to the rest of the class. Demonstrate how to make a bucket by stapling or gluing two sheets of construction paper together, leaving one side open. Show them how to make a handle and writing strips using a ruler to make straight lines on the long side of the construction paper. They can use the width of the ruler to measure the width of the strips. Demonstrate how to attach the handle to their bucket and how to cut out the strips they will use for writing their acts of kindness. Guide students to pick up what they need and begin constructing. Provide them with decorating materials for their buckets. Tell them to put the blank strips in their buckets for future use. Let them know you will provide time at the end of the day for students to take out a blank writing strip and record one act of kindness they did that day and put it in their bucket.

Wrap it up: Explain: “I hope you enjoy finding lots of different ways this week to fill your buckets with acts of kindness! This is a project you can do at home as well. This week I will give you materials to construct another bucket and writing strips for use at home, with a letter to your parents explaining the project. Mid-week we will have an act of kindness brainstorming session and you can help each other think of some new ideas!”

About the Story.

This guide is part of the Values & Virtues library, a free collection of 400+ book guides and activities organized around 12 core virtues for children from pre-K to 6th grade. Each guide includes Guiding Questions designed to open a real conversation with your child in 10 minutes or less.