Friday Fun: Bucket Filling Activities!
Bucket filling, as we covered in an earlier post is the idea that each of us has an invisible bucket, and that we feel good when it is full and bad when it is empty. Our actions towards others and their actions towards us have the ability to fill and empty buckets. When we treat others well, we fill their buckets AND our own.The activities to try with your kids this week expand on this theme. We hope you enjoy them! Let us know how they worked for you in the comments.
- Use a small bucket and place names of family members and friends inside. Have your child draw out names and think of ways to fill that person's bucket. This reinforces perspective-taking as well, since it requires thinking about what would be "bucket-filling" for that particular individual.
- Brainstorm ideas about how we can be bucket fillers vs. bucket dippers. Be sure to talk about not only what your child can do to fill others' buckets, but what they can do to fill their own. Many things will end up in both categories.
- Put a twist on Gem Jars...This activity from Family Fun magazine was reposted by Teach Mama this week: Gem Jars (we're calling ours Jewel Buckets).
- The idea is a basic one that has a lot of research behind it - you are more likely to get the behaviors you want if you reward those behaviors when you see them rather than using punishment. For example, if I don't want my boys to bicker with each other, I'm better off waiting until they are getting along well and rewarding this with praise -- and in the case of this activity, a "jewel" -- rather than punishing them for the bickering.
- For the activity, we set out a bucket for each child with a container of plastic jewels nearby and talked about how the jewels were like drops in the bucket filling books. I explained that when I caught the boys doing something to fill someone else's bucket (helping each other or someone else, being especially kind, being a good listener), that they would get a jewel in their bucket.
- When they do something nice for each other, they also get to put a jewel in their brother's bucket - reinforcing the idea that they have filled that person's bucket.
- This strategy gets them looking for ways to be bucket fillers and gets me looking for things to reward and generally makes for a more positive attitude around the house. We have only just started this activity ourselves, but for a more detailed account of a family that has been at it for a number of weeks, read the wonderful post at Teach Mama.
The idea behind all of our activities is to involve children and parents in fun games that are thought-provoking and reinforce the raising of happy and caring kids.
None of the activities should be seen as a chore, and even if you encounter some initial reluctance, you are likely to be surprised by how much fun everyone has and by how much is learned. In our families, we have even found ourselves referring back to the concepts introduced in a sort of a family shorthand, such as a quick reminder to be a bucket filler.
Share
1 comments:
This is such a great idea. Thank you!
Post a Comment