Thanksgiving/Cyber Monday Sale!

I hope each of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I know I have many blessing to be thankful for, and I have definitely been thankful for a week off! I needed the rest I have gotten this week!

Teacherpayteachers.com is having a Cyber Monday sale, and I have decided to participate. Check out my store to check out my sale (details below!).

ALL of my store is 20% off today and tomorrow! See the image below for a special code to get an EXTRA percentage off!

Getting my own bucket filled

I've mentioned that this month is bucket filling lesson month at my schools. I really love this lesson, and the kids at my schools have taken to it so well! A few are stopping me in the hallway to tell me they are filling buckets. I start my lessons each month with kindergarten, so I'm starting to get into my older babies (4-6). These kids get to fill out cards for friends. I encourage them to fill out a card for someone who isn't their best friend, or for someone they think may not be getting their bucket filled often. They love doing this! I have to cut each class off. Almost all of them want to keep filling out a card! I make sure to tell them they don't need a special card to do this and that they can do it anytime they want. Several students choose to fill their teachers' buckets, and a few even filled my bucket!

It truly did fill my bucket to get these from my students. I hope they retain this skill and continue to do it after this month's lessons are over.

Veteran's Day

I just want to brag on one of my schools. My larger school put on a Veteran's Day celebration yesterday and our kids did fantastic! The kids invited community veterans and did a little program for them. We had a great turnout from the veterans. There was a skit and a couple of poem readings, the school chorus sang. There was a moment of silence in honor of the passing of the county's oldest vet, who passed away on Saturday, and they were all respectfully silent! It was at the very end that I was the most proud of them. The program finished by all the kids singing "God Bless the USA," and all 800 of them were singing and doing the motions our awesome music teacher taught them. There is a point where they were supposed to stop singing. I cannot express to you how amazing it is to hear 800 kids stop in unison. Many of our teachers and several veterans were crying by the end of the song. They did great and were so well behaved, and I'm so proud of them! 

After the program, the veterans were treated to hamburgers or hot dogs from the cafeteria and an American flag cake. The veterans were very appreciative of the whole thing. I love this idea one of our third grade teachers came up with! It teaches our students to honor our veterans as they deserve and shows our veterans how much they are appreciated. 

Did your school or any classes at your school(s) do anything special for Veteran's Day? I hope you have a wonderful Veteran's Day!

Anger

Like I always tell my students, we all get sad and mad, but sometimes we need help dealing with our sad and mad feelings. 

Here are a few strategies I use for angry kiddos:

• I use pinwheels. You have no choice but to breathe deep when blowing a pinwheel. And my pin wheels are like industrial strength! I found these on clearance at Target at the end of the summer. Sometimes I even struggle to blow them! 
  
• I use beads and pipe cleaners to make a countdown tool. Counting down from ten, or even up to 10, can help them get a hold of their strong emotions. This is a tangible way for them to count. 

• I have a pool noodle I cut into small pieces to use as a stress ball, first mentioned here. Such a cheap and easy way to get a stress ball! Sometimes it even sounds like bubble wrap to me!

• I use the anger management puzzle. This puzzle has nine different strategies for kids to use to calm down when they are angry. The file will also come with instructions and an explanation for each strategy. It might be good the first time to play with the pieces turned over and talk about them one by one as the student flips them over. Or you could discuss them as they assemble it. I like to ask which is their favorite and what makes it their favorite.

These are my go-to favorite anger strategies. What are yours? What do you use with your students?

Bucket Filling Activities!

As I mentioned in my last post, I love the book about being a bucket filler. I know many teachers already use this book in their classrooms, but I use it as a kindness lesson for all of my kids K-6. As promised, here are the activities I do with them after reading the book: 

1. For kindergarten, writing can sometimes be a challenge for them. So, I give them the page below that allows them to draw a picture of how they could fill a bucket. I encourage them to think specifically about something they could do today. Sometimes students this age struggle with the concept of an invisible bucket, so I always clarify they know what invisible means. After reading the book, we do the drawing. I always follow up telling them to draw one way they will fill a bucket today by saying to draw something nice or helpful they can do for another today.  

2. For first-third, I have two writing activities. Which one I use depends on the level of the kids in each class. Sometimes first graders struggle with a complete sentence, so I have a sentence starter version for these guys where they can complete the sentence to say how they will fill a bucket today and then draw a picture of it.If they are able, I like to give them the page with just sentence lines on it. I try to encourage their academic skills whenever I can, so I do prefer to have them write the sentence themselves if possible. This page also has a spot for drawing pictures. I wish I had taken some pictures of some of the drawings I've seen so far! Some of them really are fantastic!

   

3. For fourth through sixth, I like to have them fill buckets right there in class! They use these cards to say something bucket filling to a friend. I always proof these before returning them to the teachers. Sometimes they say hurtful things

meaning well. I let them do as many as they have time for or want to do. Many of them have great ideas! 

For this lesson, I also try to teach about good compliments. They know saying someone's shirt is pretty is a compliment, but I encourage them to focus on something about the person. What is cool about them as a person? What thing is that person good at that they respect or admire? What do they value in the other person? Superficial compliments are good, but this kind of compliment is even better I think. 

All of these activity pages are available in a pack you can find in my TPT store. :) 

So, what do you think? Will this work with your students? Have you done bucket filling before? If so, what are your activity ideas?

Bucket Fillers

Whew! Things have been so crazy at my schools I've hardly had time to stop! This month my classroom lessons are about kindness. I'm using the book Have You Filled a Bucket Today? by Carol McCloud.

I love this book! I use it will ALL of my kids, K-6. The book is a little young for 5th-6th grade, but the lessons is good for them. It gives a great example of filling up another person's invisible bucket with good thoughts and good feelings about themselves, and that empty buckets leave us sad and lonely. People who dip into buckets also feel sad, but can't fill their own buckets by dipping into another's. I'll try to do a post soon on the activities I use with this book in my lessons!

What books/activities do you like for teaching kindness?