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!

Dotty for the letter D

 One of our weekly routines is making a page for our abc photo albums.  The children decorate a page with stamps and stickers of things that start with the letter of the week, and then I print a photo of them doing one of our letter activities to face it.  They love to read their albums, to see what they made, and to look at photos of themselves and their friends having fun.  I love that they revisit their learning!

 One of the boys noticed this amazing leaf bug crawling near the garage this week, so we moved it to a tree where we could see it, and be sure no-one would accidentally step on it.  The kiddos were amazed - they kept saying the bug was "made out of a leaf."  Of course, we talked a little about camouflage!

Here's a couple of the handprint creations we made this week - these go in a second abc book for the children.  By the end of the school year they have an alphabet of hand and foot print art, and once again, they love to visit and revisit them.  If you'd like to see more of these, check out our class page on Artsonia!

Since we've been learning the letter D, and doing dinosaur activities, I used my die cut machine to make a dozen dinos for each child, and then had them sort them however they wanted.  They had lots of great ideas: sorting by color, by shape (or type of dino), and even by carnivores/herbivores!

 During outside time, one of the kiddos decided the pile of bones were from a dinosaur - not surprising!  I think we have a future paleontologist on our hands!

 This one is looking for worms, insects, and roly pollies - a future entomologist.

D is also for dog, and my dog, Patriot, is definitely part of our school family.  He doesn't realize that he is a D. O. G. - he thinks he's one of the kiddos.  When we line up, he lines up with us (but I have to admit he still cuts in line terribly), he has his own special spot to sit with us during story time, his own spot for nap time (on the couch, spoiled dog!), doesn't understand why he doesn't get a place of his own at lunch time (but patrols the floor hopefully), and loves to play with the children.

When the weather isn't too hot, he loves to play chase with the kids.  They usually start it, by running up to him and jumping into a play bow position like I've shown them, and then they're all off, racing around the yard yelling and having a fine old time.  Patriot is a lot quicker than the kids, so he'll slow down and look at them over his shoulder, wait until they almost catch up, and then bolt off again. It's a game they play over and over, kids and dog all getting worn out, and then collapsing happily to rest afterwards.

 One of the mommies saw this game for the first time this week, and asked, "What does Patriot do on the weekend?"  He pouts.  He lays around the house looking miserable, missing his friends, and catching up on his sleep.  He'll be ready for friends to come play on Monday!

This kiddo has an "ipad" - "See the button there, that's to turn it on."

I haven't mentioned why I titled this post "Dotty for the letter D" yet.  Well, here it is.  We read The Dot earlier this week, and painted our own dots - I wrote about that in the previous post.  I finally got all 24 dot paintings up on the wall - they are so colorful in our lunch room!

 We also decorated ducks one day this week, using torn paper to cover our ducks with feathers.  When I put them up on the wall, the kiddos informed me that there were 5 adults and 6 babies, so there were more babies than mommas.  We talk about math concepts like this often, so it's just a normal part of their day, to notice and comment on number, more/less - on almost anything they notice.

 Finally, here's the craft project we did on Friday, when we talked about dragons.  I read the children some of my favorite poems from The Dragons Are Singing Tonight, by Jack Prelutsky.
I found this cute dragon craft on terrific2s.blogspot.ca and love that it uses bubble wrap printing to make the scales!  The children enjoyed painting, cutting out their dragons, and gluing on the details, and now our dragons are hanging over the table in our playroom, guarding us!

Thank you for stopping by to check out what we've been up to at Paula's Preschool and Kindergarten!  Please come back soon!

Dinosaurs and dots

It's letter D week in preschool, so of course there have to be dinosaurs involved! In addition to plastic dinosaur toys, we've had dinosaur lacing...

 

... build a dinosaur...

 ... dinosaurs hats and puppets...

 ...and plenty of dinosaur math!

We sang the  D is for song, from Mrs. Jones Sing Along Songs, and acted it out by putting things that start with the letter D on a dish.  We even voted for our favorite d things to find on a dish, and made a graph with our whole bodies.  I was very surprised that more children voted for a ducky than a donut!

 We read The Dot by Peter Reynolds, and did a lot of dot painting - we even "made a dot by not making a dot" just like Vashti in the story!  To do that, I gave each child a circle cut out to place on their paper to keep that part free of paint.  I introduced the idea of "negative space," but what the kids took away from this lesson was that if you bang the dot paint hard on your paper, it makes splashes!  They really got into the pounding away, and laughed hysterically while making a huge mess.  One child told me we should do it all day, because it was the best!

We'll focus on ducks and dragons later this week, and there's even a cooking project.  Check back soon for an update!