Jul272016

Make Global Connections With The Dot!

Make a mark! Isn't that a simple, but fabulous message? In Peter H. Reynolds' book, The Dot, he tells a fabulous story of an encouraging teacher who helps a young student to find the confidence to express her creativity and to make a mark on the world.

I fell in love with this book, and used it as jumping off point for our How We Express Ourselves unit. It could not have been more perfect.  Did you know there is even a super catchy song to go with it?



My students loved learning this song and we were able to extend the concept of "making a mark" beyond the artistic implications, to the broader global concepts of making a difference in the world.

We had a blast using our creativity to make artistic marks in a variety of ways:

  • Use classroom computers and MS Paint  to create  digital dots.
  • Explore with sidewalk chalk to create dots on the playground
  • Make Crayon resist dots with watercolors
  • Decorate unit folders with lots of unique dots 
The curriculum connections can be extended to math also.  Here are just a few:
  • Counting dots ( M&M's and pennies are super fun for this)
  • Writing and illustrating story problems with dots
  • Dots on a ten frame 
Celebrate student creativity and guide them to thinking about how to make their own marks in the world someday!

In my efforts to help my students make connections to the world around them we were able to have some fabulous discussions about what it means to "make a mark" in the world.  We talked about people they know who have made marks, and about the kind of mark they could make on the world, our classroom community, and their very own families.  I cannot express how much I love where this book took us!

You may be interested to know that there is even an International Dot Day!  It will be in September, but many, myself included, do not celebrate at that time, and it doesn't really matter!  You can follow this link to sign up for more information, which also includes a fabulous FREE Educator's Guide with lots of fun ideas and resources.  You can also follow the event on Facebook .

I am now officially obsessed with Fablevision Learning  and can't wait to share more with you in future posts!



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