Bucket Fillers

One of the best ways to create a positive classroom community and environment is to implement Bucket Fillers into your classroom routine.  During the first week of school I introduce bucket fillers to my class by reading the book, Have You Filled a Bucket Today? by Carol McCloud . 

I teach a lesson along with reading the book about my expectations for the year about how we are going to treat one another. I lead them in a discussion using an anchor chart to write their ideas about what classifies as a bucket filler vs. a bucket dipper. Then I introduce the bucket filler board and how they can fill each others bucket all year long. This becomes an activity to do when they finish their work early. We also discuss how to try to fill every ones buckets and not just their friends.

To make the buckets I got popcorn bags from Party City and stapled white pipe cleaner to the top for the handle. Then I labeled the buckets with my students names and hang them on the board with a push pin so they could take their bucket off and on to check it weekly.

To get bucket filler papers to print and cut for free, visit my TpT store: Mrs Kearsley's Classroom.

This is one of my students' favorite activities and helps create a positive classroom community throughout the year. You can even make yourself a bucket as well! Positivity is contagious and can make your year great!

Classroom Reveal

I took last school year off to raise my baby boy, Landon. Now I want to make sure I don't forget anything while I stay at home with him so I decided to create a blog of my last year of teaching. It was my best year yet and I can't wait to share all that I did! I hope this blog will not only help myself remember all the great things in the classroom, but help other teachers get creative ideas to use in their own classrooms. I will be taking the summer to blog about the school year. While the post won't be what is currently happening in the school year, it will be more of a look back on the school year.

August 2014: New year, new classroom. Here is the big reveal. I decided to set up student desks in cooperative learning groups because I knew I wanted do more cooperative learning this year and teach them right from the get go how to have self control and not talk all the time just because they are close.

Then I spent a lot of time organizing and setting up our classroom library. I used book bins from the dollar tree and binder rings to attached labels onto the bins. Non-fiction books were labeled with green border and fiction books were labeled with a blue border. Labels were created based on different literary genres or book sets that I had in my collection, for example: Mystery, Humor, Science Fiction, Action Adventure, Boxcar Children, Fantasy, etc. Click here to get my library labels from my TpT store...I have recently updated them and they are super cute! I found this cozy rug at Ross for $15 and bought a few comfy pillows to make the space feel comfortable and inviting.