Tuesday, September 11, 2012

We are Filling Buckets!







We’re Filling Buckets!

                                                                                                            September 10, 2012

Dear Families,

I hope you had a wonderful summer and are rested and ready for the new school year.
At the end of the last year I was awarded a Burlington Education Foundation grant as well as supplemental money from the Pine Glen PTO to implement a school wide positive behavior program. The “We’re Filling Buckets!” program has been designed to foster a greater sense of community. By utilizing the theme from Carol McCloud’s book, “Have You Filled a Bucket Today?”, students and staff will spend the year recognizing positive behaviors towards themselves and others. My intention is enhance our school community environment by highlighting good citizenship behaviors.
For those of you who have not yet read the book (I encourage you to do so, if you have the opportunity), Bucket Filling is a simple concept… “Everyone in the whole wide world walks around carrying an invisible bucket…Its purpose is to hold your good thoughts and feelings about yourself.” Our buckets are filled when we show acts of kindness and respect towards one another. I have visited each classroom this year and explained this new program to the students and they have all listed many ways we can practice being good bucket fillers. If you would like to learn more about bucket filling, visit the Bucket Fillers website, www.bucketfillers101.com.
Small buckets have been provided to each classroom and staff have been asked to present small recognition slips to students who exemplify behaviors consistent with good citizenship/filling buckets. I will be going around to each classroom collecting the bucket slips on a consistent basis and creating a visual representation by the front entrance of all the buckets we fill at Pine Glen. The students are working to beat my goal of filling 1,000 buckets this year. The program will culminate with a special school wide presentation in June.
I have also created a blog this year to document our bucket filling at Pine Glen as well as serve as a resource for our families with information about relevant mental health topics, school/community events, etc. Please take a moment to check it out at http://pineglenschoolpsych.blogspot.com
As always, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me. I look forward to working with the students again and hope we fill many buckets this year!

Sincerely,


Lea Garneau, M.Ed., Ed.S., NCSP
School Psychologist
Pine Glen Elementary School
781-505-1128

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