The first day of school we will be reading How Full is Your Bucket? At the beginning of this story, Grandfather explains that everyone has a bucket and that the events of the day can either fill their bucket or empty it. Basically, good feelings fill a bucket and negative feelings empty the bucket. In the story, the boy spilled his cereal and was made fun of by older students at school. These events left his bucket pretty dry and made him feel grouchy and mean. Pretty soon though, his teacher complimented him on a story he had written and before he knew it, he was filling other people's buckets (which was good for both of them).
This year we all want to be bucket fillers. We also want to be understanding of our classmates if their bucket is empty and needs filling.
In addition we will be reading the David books by David Shannon. The students may notice that David is not always a bucket filler. Hopefully this will then lead us to a discussion about Peacemakers and Peacebreakers. We will make lists of examples of each and use them as a foundation for writing our class rules. I will post the rules when they are completed.
