International Dot Day

Do you know this book?

It's the lovely tale of Vashti, a child who doesn't think she can draw.  At her teacher's urging, she makes a mark on her paper, a simple dot.  When the teacher frames it in a swirly gold frame and displays it, Vashti begins to believe she can draw, at least a dot.

This simple tale speaks to me as a teacher - for surely, how we react to our students influences what they believe about themselves  - and also as an artist.  A very imperfect artist, but like Vashti, I can try.

I thought I'd share some of the pictures of how my preschoolers celebrated International Dot Day last year, and encourage you to join in the fun.  We draw and do art projects all the time, so my kiddos, like most 3-5 year olds, already knew they were artists.  :-)  I decided to talk about dots, and the dot Vashti made with negative space, and of course, we got out the dot paints, aka bingo dabbers.  Everyone made several dot paintings, just enjoying the medium.

It's important to let the children have time with new materials, so they can explore and be comfortable with it.  Until then, they're not likely to be interested in someone else's suggestions.

Once the kiddos had explored the dabbers, I put some cardboard circles out on the table.  I placed one in the center of my blank paper, and joined in on the dabbing, mostly avoiding the cardboard circle.  You can see from the circles on the table, once we started using them, a lot of the kiddos wanted to dab only on the cardboard.  That works too!

Most of the children joined in with using the cardboard circles, although not everyone wanted to do that, which, again, is fine.  They were fascinated by the negative space left when they lifted the cardboard - and several of them made the connection to the book, and Vashti's dot that wasn't a dot painting.

The children helped me choose two pictures each to display on the wall in our lunch area - enough to fill the wall.  I didn't have them make swirly gold frames like Vashti's teacher, but that would be an awesome touch!  I've seen that done here.

There's actually an International Dot Day, on September 15th-ish, and as of this writing, people in 107 countries have signed up to participate - 2,900,000 people!  There are official posters and an educator's handbook availabe on their website.  If you'd like to join in, follow this link!

I've also started collecting ideas on my pinterest board: International Dot Day. 

I'd love to hear your ideas, and to pin them there too - please let me know how you celebrate in the comments!