Billy's Bucket

Product Information

This is when the ‘magic’ happens; every time Billy peers into his bucket he sees a variety of magical watery worlds.

Look back at the beginning of the story and talk about why Billy might want a bucket for his birthday, why his parents seem to think this is strange and why they keep asking to borrow his bucket. The story of course, subtly is reinforcing to children that they do not have to necessarily be materialistic to have good play! This book could be used as an opening lesson to creative writing, allowing children to recreate their own stories and their own magical watery worlds to share with their peers. His parents laugh it off, but when they borrow the bucket, they have a whale of a problem on their hands.The idea of Billy’s bucket can be used during carpet time to get the children imagining what they might possibly see in Billy’s bucket. This books is brilliant in getting children to use their imagination and seeing what they can find in their own bucket. Used for maths with introducing capacity and in English writing stories about what's in your bucket. Children could bring in their own buckets and decide what kind of things they would like to imagine being inside it.

When Billy brings the bucket home, he describes all the sea life that he observes swimming around inside.When he found the special one he was looking for he filled it with water and then he could see many amazing things.

His parents offered him a number of gifts including trainers, a computer game and a bike but Billy insisted that he would much rather have a bucket. Billy’s imagination led him into a magical ocean adventure where he found all sorts of sea creatures. Many Hamilton units come with interactive Grammar Presentations integrated into the overall teaching and textual context. The premise of the story (a young boy wanting a bucket for his birthday) captivates the reader, and it keeps us right up until the end. This is a classic 'low thresh-hold, high ceiling' book which can be used as a basis to form many activities - from arts and craft such as filling their own bucket, to deeper discussion delving around the need to accumulate the more typical 'stuff'.Once children have heard the story a few times they can be encouraged to retell the story in their own words using the pictures to guide them. The book beautifully captures children's use of their imagination and takes the reader on an adventure on what can been seen inside Billy's bucket.