Bucket Filler Bandits - Encouraging Kindness In the Classroom

I’m sure you’re familiar with the bucket filler books. We fill buckets by being kind and helping others and we also fill our own buckets when we do nice things. We dip into buckets when we make poor choices.

This is a great activity to do in September when you’re developing a positive and supportive classroom community, in February which is often “Kindness month” or really, whenever, because kindness isn’t just one one day of the year.

We read both bucket filler books (there are French versions but I chose to do this as an English assignment) and we brainstormed some ideas about how we could help fill buckets. We wrote down the ideas on sticky notes and added them to our bucket. You could have students write them as table groups and come add them to the chart, or write directly inside the bucket.

Each year at my school, the Kindergarten students participate in a Kindness Ninjas project where they go around doing kind acts.

We didn’t want to miss out on the fun but we also didn’t want to jump on their thing so instead, we decided we’d be the bucket filler bandits, except these bandits are good! They’re just sneaky and don’t need recognition for their good deeds. Full credit for the creative name goes to my colleague!

Then, we created comics and supporting stories about the bucket filler bandits. They also had the option to create a different kindness characteristic if they preferred (Kindness Cat, Helpful Horse…). My example story was about a Bandit who hung out at the library and put away books that got left out or put them back on the shelf the right way. He also had a sidekick who helped out with big jobs. The students loved him and couldn’t wait to start their own stories.

Finally we created a video for our assembly where we gave examples of how to be a BFB and another 2/3 class acted out some scenes to show these examples. We then challenged our school to also be BFB and show us their kindness.

Will you be a Bucket Filler Bandit??