Bucket Fillers are my favorite classroom management strategy. I have used it for the past 5 years and I don’t ever plan on changing because it is so versatile and can work for all students. In kindergarten, I have realized that students need a physical item vs. moving clips, earning points, color code charts. I use pom-poms as my reinforcers for them to be bucket fillers. This way the students are filling a physical bucket with physical items.
Books That Go Along With It:
Before I start using bucket fillers, I read these books below that you can get on amazon. I love how the books explain how each person carries an invisible bucket. It goes through how you can be a bucket filler or a bucket dipper. It also explains what a bucket filler or dipper is with examples that are kid-friendly. This vocabulary I use in my classroom throughout the year. Although we discuss bucket dippers and students realize themselves when they’re being one, I do not take away pom-poms. My students can only earn them.
How I Use Bucket Fillers:
Once a month my students can count their pom-poms and exchange them for rewards. You can count them once a week, every other week, or what works best for you. At the beginning of the year, I show the students how to make groups of 5 or 10. It helps them practice counting that way. I use reward coupons from TPT and each coupon is worth 5 points. I also have a school-wide program that when they get to every 10 points they get a ticket for school prizes. They don’t lose the 10 pom-poms though.
This was one of my bucket fillers displayed. I loved using physical buckets because it was easy for my students to bring to their seats when it was time to count them. However, sometimes the pom-poms would fall out into other buckets and students could see how full other buckets were. I decided after this that I would hang their buckets in their cubbies for more privacy.
When I switched schools, I didn’t have individual privacy cubbies and have more limited wall space. I found this advent calendar on my Facebook marketplace that would be a perfect solution to use. Each student has their own bucket they fill and they are pretty covered well so they can’t see inside. The only downfall is to count them, I’ll have to take them out and hand to the students.
Grab this bucket filler sign on my TPT Store under my classroom labels.
