Fill a Bucket: A Guide to Daily Happiness for Young Children

Using a bucket as a metaphor, this book talks about how positive interactions between one's self and others create happiness. Doing good for friends and family members helps make the doer feel good as well. It does not really get into helping strangers in need, but focusses more on playing together, sharing, cuddling, etc.

The illustrations with smiling buckets filling up with a rainbow of hearts and stars really make this book. It's a tad too much on the didactic side in the text, but it does appear to be designed for very young children, so I think it works for the audience. I could see this making for a warm and cozy lapsit read between a parent and a child, opening up a conversation about other nice things they can do for those show more around them. show less

This book is a wonderful choice to share with students at the beginning of the year. It encourages children to think about the positive actions that help “fill” other people’s buckets, as well as the negative actions that can “empty” them. The story naturally leads to meaningful discussion and critical thinking about kindness, empathy, and respect. Throughout the year, it becomes a helpful reference point as students reflect on their choices and how their actions impact others.

Carol McCloud writes an excellent story for preschoolers and other children. It is a story of how to be kind and care for other people. It uses bright colorful illustrations showing the idea that each and every one of us has a bucket to hold all the happy thoughts and good feelings that we get throughout the day by doing and saying kind things. It also shows examples of things that we can do to try and fill other people’s buckets. The fun language, catchy song, and bright illustrations help to reinforce the lesson of showing empathy and kindness for others. It is the beginning stage for preschoolers to start to grasp the concept of others having a different perspective and feelings other then their own.

A nice little book about happiness, and how it is not entirely accidental.

This book is about kids feeling each others imaginary buckets with kindness, the book mentions that sometimes people take from your bucket (bullying). This book is perfect to teach kindness between one another and to not bully. Ages: 3-5. Source: Personal Library.

This book is about feelings, when you do something nice to someone, you fill their bucket and vice versa. This teaches children to engage in prosocial behavior and view a situation from more than one perspective.
Age: 4-8
Source: Pierce College Library

This is a little book to teach children how to experience the joy of giving and receiving