We went a little Dotty...!

September 15th-ish is one of my favorite dates of the year. It's the day/week we join more than four million people all around the world to celebrate International Dot Day, which is inspired by Peter Reynolds' book, The Dot.

From http://www.thedotclub.org/ :

International Dot Day, a global celebration of creativity, courage and collaboration... The Dot is the story of a caring teacher who dares a doubting student to trust in her own abilities by being brave enough to “make her mark”. What begins with a small dot on a piece of paper becomes a breakthrough in confidence and courage, igniting a journey of self-discovery and sharing, which has gone on to inspire countless children and adults around the globe.

This is the third year Memorial School has participated in Dot Day. Art teacher, Joe Knaus and I have collaborated each of these years and we're proud to say that every student and staff member reads or hears the story and then creates their own dot. It's a One Book, One School event! Kindergarten and grade one students create dots in art class (and a big thank you to brand new art teacher, Tracey Babin, for jumping in!). And, our PreK students make dots in their classrooms. It's so much fun and so inspiring to see all the dots displayed around the school.

But that's not all! This year we added Go Dotty Day  when everyone wore dots. What a fine and fun example of school spirt.       

                             

                      

                                                   

 

Staff member Kathleen Flaherty gave dot stickers to anyone who did not wear dots

One component of Dot Day is connecting with others outside of our school walls. We had seven Skype sessions planned, but due to technical problems we were only able to make four of them. Still, four very successful Skype sessions! We connected with students from Austin, TX, Baton Rouge, LA, Carlisle, MA and Dacula, GA. We co-read stories, had one mystery Skype where students gave each other clues so they could guess where the other class was from, and each time we asked questions to learn what was the same and what was different about our schools and where we lived. I was so proud of our students. They showed they were excellent digital citizens by their respectful behavior.

That's us on the screen! We're co-reading Ish by Peter Reynolds (the sequel to The Dot)

For those classes whose Skype sessions did not work out (YAY for plan B!), we made dots come alive using Augmented Reality (AR). This was LOTS of fun!

                 

  

We were all about Dot Day in the library too. Kids listened to related stories, learned the Dot Song (you can see a live version here) and there were a couple of special centers. Here's one where dots were made: circles were traced, decorated and then cut out.

Lots of thanks to go around: To our principal, Dr. Bilsborough and the staff for their support, to all the students and their families for their partipation and enthusiasm, to fellow teacher librarians for their collaboration and to my partner, Joe Knaus. 

Can't wait to see how we "Make our Marks" throughout this school year until next September 15th-ish, 2016!