Carol McCloud is the author of
Have You Filled a Bucket Today? "She first learned about bucketfilling in a parenting workshop at an early childhood conference in the1990's. The speaker, an expert in infant brain research, said it is helpful to think of every baby as being born with an invisible bucket. The bucket represents a child's mental and emotional health. You can't see the bucket, but it's there. She went on to say that it is primarily the parents' or other caregivers' responsibility to fill a child's bucket. When you hold, caress, nurture, touch, sing, play and provide loving attention, safely and care, you fill your child's bucket."
Carol goes on to say, "However, in addition to being loved, children must also be taught how to love. Children who learn how to express kindness and love lead happier lives. When you love and care about others and show that love with what you say and do, you feel good and you fill your own bucket, too."
Carol says she wrote
Have You Filled a Bucket Today? to teach young children how to be bucket fillers. Each time we read the book with the children, we use it as an opportunity to model bucketfilling by filling their buckets. We help them think about what they might say it do to fill someones else's bucket. We will continue to work with the children and help them practice daily bucketfilling.
As you can see in the above photos they are already ready experiencing the pride and joy of filling buckets. Josh reached out to Noah on the way to down to the Community Room and said, "Let's hold hands." Noah smiled, reached out his hand and said, "Yes, let's hold hand." Zach saw that Lily was having trouble getting her magnatile structure to stay up, so he offered to help. Daily Micah G thinks of his mom and takes the time to write her special notes. Last week Josie was having trouble stirring the pumpkin muffins...the dough was thick and hard to mix. Elias heard Josie ask for help and started stirring the dough for her. We sure are have fun filling buckets!
This book is a must have for you library at home! The whole family will love filling buckets!
Thank you to the Haifa classroom for inviting Etzim in for a delicious and fun hot chocolate/popcorn snack and play time. We loved hanging out with the big kids and your teachers, and playing on your loft. What friendly neighbors!
The lunch part of Lunch Bunch was full of smiles and great conversation! After lunch the children are responsible to put their garbage where it belongs, their lunch box back into their backpacks and then they have the opportunity to brush their teeth. Today we all sat around and brushed our teeth together, as we sang... The Brushing Your Teeth Song (Raffi).
First we spent some time outside playing on the playground. Josie and Zach enjoyed spending time in the kitchen area, making goldfish cakes. Molly and Charlotte decided to play house and care for Molly's baby. They put the baby on the swing, fed her and changed her diaper multiple times. It is so nice to see the children playing and connecting with both their new classmates and their old friends.
Displaying images from children's home and family life in the early childhood environment creates a continuous reminder of the home-to-school connection. These photos can be displayed in a variety of ways, such as plastic frames, photo stands, notebook binders, bulletin boards. Some of these images should be portable so that children are free to move around and incorporate them into their play or turn to them when they need comfort or reassurance. 
The Haifa class always tries to show friendship and kindness towards one another. Right before Thanksgiving, Ebert, our daytime cleaner/janitor/everything-you-could-ever-need-fixed genie, welcomed his third baby girl into his family! The Haifa class decided to make him a card, or a poster as the case may be, and put it on the door of his office. We have since learned that her name is Camila!