Dot Day Celebrations

This past week we celebrated International Dot Day, which was on September 15th. Dot Day is a day to celebrate creativity and our unique talents. The special day is inspired by the book by Peter H. Reynolds, one of my favorite picture books about perseverance and always doing our best. 

Reynolds, Peter. H. 2003. THE DOT. Candlewick Press.

I collaborated with our art teacher to celebrate the entire week. Our art teacher brought Kinder, 1st, and 2nd grades into the library for art class. The kids were amazed that we were having art in the library! It brought up discussion about illustrations in books and the different medium that the illustrators use. I read the book to the students, and we discussed how we each have different talents. Then the art teacher reviewed types of lines that the students had learned the previous week. Each student then got 1/4 of a dot to fill up with the different lines. Groups worked together to put their pieces together to make dots, and we learned about collaboration. 

This group has 1/2 of a dot completed, so they are drawing things with circles on the "dot" tables.

A group has their dot completed! 

Our art teacher is going over the directions and reviewing the types of lines. 

I love how the dots all turned out different and unique, just like our students.

Our fourth grade teachers wanted in on the Dot Day celebration as well, so they were able to come in for a lesson and short celebration as well. Thank goodness for my flexible schedule!  We discussed our lesson mostly through email, and we decided to focus on text-to-self connections. With the fourth graders, we viewed the digital book through TumbleBooks. We had a great discussion on what it means to 'make your mark'.  

After the discussion, students began to make their connections. Some of them needing a little prompting writing their sentences, so I gave them a sentence frame. Just like Vashti_____________, I _______________. This helped the ones that were having trouble connecting their memory to the story. 

Now, the fun part! On the back of the page with the connection students were instructed to get just one color and make a mark on their paper. Then I said, "Now, see where that mark takes you." So the students had to make their mark into a picture.  We had Pokemon, ponies, pizzas, patterns, and landscapes. It was amazing how many different ideas they had. 

So, that was week 2 of flexible schedule, and I am loving it! The lessons have been so meaningful to the students. Next week there will be lessons on CyberSafety in the library. Also, don't forget to check out the campus website for information on the CyberSafety poster! 

On another note: my new circulation desk arrived this week, and I am in love! It has so much storage room that I am still filling it up and making room in other places. One student came in the following morning and said "WOW! It looks just like a real library!" It is certainly an update from my previous circulation desk from 1970.