FableVision Learning Spotlight Blog
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Create Bravely this International Dot Day
International Dot Day might look a bit different his year - but there are many creative way to celebrate. Are you ready to join the over 17 million students, teachers, librarians, community groups and more this International Dot Day, celebrating creativity and courage in 185 countries on or around September 15th-ish!
To support your International Dot Day festivities we’ve pulled together a few ideas to “connect the dots this year.”
Discover The Dot
Read The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds to see where all of this started - you can grab a copy over at The Dot Central. Once you read the book, go behind the scenes with Peter H. Reynolds.
Let Us Know You Are Celebrating
Join the growing community celebrating International Dot Day by registering over at The Dot Club! Once you register, you can download the updated 2020 Educator’s Handbook for Dot Day, which features student handouts by Peter H. Reynolds and Dot Day activities by creative educators -including ideas for remote celebrations. Visit the Reynolds Center for more resources and posters.
Fabricate Your Dot
FabMaker Studio is a perfect tool for cultivating your inventive spirit! With this paper prototyping and fabrication software, flex your design muscles and create 2D, Pop-up, and 3D paper models inspired by The Dot. It’s easy to get your design mind rolling when you start small - you can always try again and again! Try fabricating dots that fold, roll, spin, or transform!
Animate Your Dot
With Animation-ish it’s never been easier to bring your drawings to life. Three distinct levels let you practice and animation motion techniques by making your dots roll, bounce, squish, grow, morph, and much more. What can your dots do? Just make your mark and see where it take you!
The Story of Your Dot
With virtual coaching by Peter H. Reynolds, Storybook Academy, our book writing and design program is the perfect way to encourage your students to share their voice. Students can write and illustrate the story of how they will make their mark this Dot Day!
Get Inspired: Check Out Celebri-dots
Head over to the Celebri-dots website to check out dots created by a variety of individuals, from authors and illustrators to actors and astronauts! Packed with dots from all walks of life - paint dots, pie dots, and even Earth dots - you’ll be sure to find inspiration there.
Connect the Dots with Other Educators
Looking to "connect the dots" with other classrooms nationally and internationally on Dot Day? Whether it's through email or web-based video connection, use the Dot Day Google Doc to make connections. Thanks to creative librarian/educators Shannon McClintock Miller @shannonmmiller, Andy Plemmons @plemmonsa, and Matthew Winner @matthewwinner for overseeing this effort! Check out Shannon’s blog post, here.
Connected Dots: A Virtual Celebration
Dot Day founder Terry Shay, introduced a create way to “connect the dots” this year to a virtual template. For more details on how to participate and to download the template, click here.
Dots for Doors: A Community Celebration
Inspired by Amanda Overholt of Exeter, Ontario community-wide scavenger hunt, we are excited to share the Dots for Doors project. Amanda explained that the scavenger hunts are a way to stay connected during the pandemic. “The best thing about these scavenger hunts is everyone can participate! If you're not able to get out to count the houses, while practicing social distancing due to COVID isolation regulations, or other reasons, you can still Participate by simple posting something on your front window/door!” Through the community Facebook page, Amanda shares activities (like this Dot counter), photos, and more.
On September 15-ish, students, teachers, schools, and communities will celebrate International Dot Day. A celebration of creativity, courage, and compassion, Dot Day encourages everyone to #MakeYourMark. Ready to join in on the International Dot Day 2020 Celebration! Share your story with us! Let us know you are celebrating and download the new handbook: Register at The Dot Club. Share your mark across social media with #MakeYourMark and #InternationalDotDay. Stay connected on Twitter @DotClubConnect, Instagram and Facebook!
Classroom Spotlight: Tudor Elementary Connects the Dots on Dot Day
Michelle Carton is an accomplished global educator and librarian at Tudor Elementary School in Anchorage, Alaska. She is known for her innovative curriculum and has taught in many diverse school environments, but her deep passion for making education relevant and empowering for students while building a lifelong love for learning and exploring has remained a constant. To celebrate International Dot Day, 2017 Michelle and her class connected the dots around the world - so we connected with her to learn more about how she inspires students every day to make their mark!
How did you first learn about Dot Day?
We first learned about Dot Day when I was searching out global and international activities for students. Our first year, we simply read the book, talked about international and global activities. We then created our dots. Our next year, we took it further to talk about how we will make our mark on the world, and why that matters. This year, we took it global and connected with schools all over the world, from Pakistan to Sri Lanka, Canada, and the "lower 48," connected it to the UN Sustainable Development Goals and shared how we will make an impact on being good earth citizens and taking care of each other and the planet.
How does Dot Day tie into your work as a global educator and the mission of Global Education Alaska?
Global Education Alaska initially started out through my Fellowship, Teachers for Global Classrooms sponsored by the U.S. State Department and the International Resources and Exchanges Board. It has now become an opportunity for teachers all over the world to find ideas and resources to take their class global, through workshops, seminars, and simply perusing our website. As a teacher in Alaska, I know our students come from all over the world (we have one the most diverse districts in the country), to a place that is quite isolated and remote, they just need a platform to embrace the world's people, lives, and stories, in a way that will help them embrace their own.
Dot Day is an opportunity for young people to celebrate their marks on a global scale. By connecting with schools around the world, we are making global citizenship more attainable and realizing that young people, no matter where they live, innately want to do good and be a part of the solution. Dot Day does a great job of setting the foundation for International Day of Peace and also United Nations Day, where we delve further into the idea that we are all connected and by learning about the world, understanding the perspectives in the world, and connecting with the world, we are in deed "taking action" which is what it means to be a global citizen. Global Education Alaska provides an opportunity for Alaskan students to learn about the world and for the world to learn about Alaska, the real Alaska (not the one on television).
Do you have tips for educators looking to take their Dot Day celebrations global?
Taking your Dot Day global can be easy, mostly because I have laid out on our website, just how to do that! Also, a few things I learned along the way. Using a tool such as signup.com, makes managing a calendar really simple. Also, making sure to double check a few days before, as we are busy educators, really helps solidify the process. Having students set goals for connecting creates a strong sense of buy-in as well.
My students' goal for next year is to connect both with Emily Arrow to learn the Dot Day song and the team at FableVision to share how they are making their mark on the world AND how they intend to do that in their future as well. What is being done through Dot Day many do not realize: for students to have a voice and see it be heard and honored builds an incredible foundation for growth, both academic, personal/social.
What is your favorite memory from your Dot Day 2017 celebration?
My favorite moment from Dot Day 2017 is when my students who normally are quite disengaged, shy, or overwhelmed by their life outside of school, get incredibly excited, and truly become children again, to laugh, and clap, and remember. Students all year will tell me, "Remember when we connected with _____ for Dot Day, that was really cool." They will remember these moments, all the way into their adulthood. For children to be able to have something to grab onto, even in the most challenging times, is incredibly precious!
How do you inspire students to make their mark and what’s your own inspiration?
Inspiring students to make their mark, care about the world around them, and a desire to be a part of the solution, comes from my own passion for these things. Students want to be engaged and excited; when an educator is, and gently guides students to take suit, they are carving a lane for students to be vulnerable. My own passion comes from being that kid who didn't really engage, teachers just pushed on, struggled in school, went to 9 different elementary schools, was in an out of foster care, and didn't really have something to be passionate about. I had one teacher, in 4th grade, who reached out in a major way and it changed my life. I aim to reach that student, and along the way, bring with me lots of other excitable young people.
I left Corporate America to do something I believed could make an impact on the world, and I haven't stopped yet. Now, I have 350 developing young global citizens who are beginning to see the impact of their dedication and passion. To be a global citizen is to embrace the possible, push past the maybe, and explore the unknown--but to always come out in a much more aware state of being. We are building future peace leaders, one dot at a time.
How did you Make Your Mark on Dot Day?
We love seeing all the Dot activity on social media! Share your Dot Day celebration and tips by using #DotDay and #MakeYourMark.
If you would like to be featured on the FableVision Learning blog, send us a message: info@fablevisionlearning.com.
Classroom Spotlight: Dammam, Saudi Arabia Makes its Mark on Dot Day
This blog post was written by Patrick McDonagh, FableVision Learning marketing intern.
On Sept. 16, Nouf Arar Aldossary a 7th and 8th grade math teacher in Dammam, Saudi Arabia celebrated International Dot Day. For Nouf, it was a special celebration.
“Dot Day 2017 is a special day for me for two reasons” Nouf said. “First: It is the first Dot Day I celebrated. Second: It is the last days for me in The Sixteenth Intermediate School in Dammam. I will be moving to teach in a small village for primary school - a new community, a new school level, a new life!”
The school joined over 10 million dot makers in 170 countries for International Dot Day, a truly global celebration of creativity and courage. To learn more about Dot Day, celebrated every Sept. 15-ish, click here.
We were excited to connect the dots with Nouf to learn more about the school’s first Dot Day celebration. Read on!
How did you bring the Dot Day experience to the classroom?
I gave 7th graders worksheets with a circle divided to 4 sectors, and told them to make their mark - just begin with dot and see where will take you.
For 8th graders, I gave them a large amount of colorful magnetic circles (400 pieces), and asked them to design a creative artwork on the whiteboard.
Then, students asked me to continue to celebrate Dot Day on the next Sunday Sept. 24; to celebrate the national day of Saudi Arabia (it was on Friday 23 September 2017). They put a black magnetic circle on the whiteboard, then put the green magnetic circles surrounded by white circles, and put colorful magnetic circles around it. They mean that Mecca (black circle) is the heart of Saudi Arabia (white and green circles), and Saudi Arabia is the heart of the Arab and Islamic worlds (colorful circles), the investment powerhouse, and the hub connecting three continents, which align with 2030 vision. We spent another 3 hours to complete the creative art work. The students and I are so proud of our work!
How did you use Dot Day themes in your mathematics teaching?
When I introduced Dot Day to students, I first asked the students: “In mathematics, what does a dot mean? Is it an important concept?”
They said that a dot is so important in mathematics because everything consists of a dot. A straight line can be drawn between any two dots ( Euclid's elements).
Then I asked them: “what about life? is the dot an important symbol in our life?” they said that the dot refers to the beginning of everything, the beginning of success, the beginning of creativity, the beginning of our journey into life.
Who or what inspires you to make your mark every day?
Because a dot of blood saves a human, a dot of water quenches thirst, and a dot on the letter gives meaning to the word; so the dot deserves to be celebrated. It inspired me and inspired my students to make our mark in our community. In future, I will do another Dot Day with students in grade 1 and grade 3 in the new school to inspire me to a new happy life.
How did you Make Your Mark on Dot Day?
We love seeing all the Dot activity on social media! Continue to share your #DotDay celebration with by using the #DotDay and #MakeYourMark.
If you would like to be featured on our blog, send us a message: info@fablevisionlearning.com
A Special Dot Day Message from Boston Mayor Marty Walsh
Boston Mayor Marty Walsh has a special message to the students and teachers at Russell Elementary School in Dorchester, MA, as well as to the other nearly 10 million celebrating #DotDay in 169 countries!
How are you making your mark this #DotDay? Sign up for a FREE Dot Day guide & resources.
Dot Day 2017 in Pictures
Paul and Peter H. Reynolds joined the students at the Russell Elementary School for an amazing Dot Day Celebration. Here are a few of the highlights:
Mapping the World by Heart on Dot Day
There are 169 countries celebrating International Dot Day on September 15 — but where in the world are they all? One way to connect the dots this Dot Day is to map out the world from memory using David Smith's Mapping the World by Heart, paying special attention to the celebrating 169 countries!
To get you started on your International Dot Day mapping journey, here are 50 of the countries celebrating this year. Feel free to keep going and map the whole world though!
Can you map:
- Algeria
- Australia
- Bahrain
- Brazil
- Cambodia
- Canada
- China
- Democratic Republic of Congo
- Dominican Republic
- Egypt
- El Salvador
- Fiji
- France
- Germany
- Ghana
- Honduras
- Hungary
- India
- Iraq
- Ireland
- Israel
- Italy
- Jamaica
- Japan
- Kenya
- South Korea
- Laos
- Lebanon
- Libya
- Malaysia
- Mexico
- Morocco
- Netherlands
- New Zealand
- Norway
- Oman
- Pakistan
- Poland
- Qatar
- Russia
- Rwanda
- Saudi Arabia
- Spain
- Thailand
- Turkey
- United Kingdom
- United States of America
- Venezuela
- Vietnam
- Zambia
The award-winning curriculum is the creation of David J. Smith, a teacher with over 25 years' experience in the middle school classroom. Mapping the World by Heart is an innovative geography curriculum designed to inspire students to study - and love - geography. Through a combination of memorization and the real use of knowledge, practice, mnemonics, large and small group activities, and games, Mapping the World by Heart helps students thoroughly understand essential world geography.
Still want to learn more about exploring geography and joining the International Dot Day festivities? Click here to learn more about Mapping the World by Heart and click here to register for International Dot Day on September 15-ish!
Highlights from the #DotDay #FableLearnChat
On Sept. 7, 2017 #DotDay educators and fans gathered for the first #FableLearnChat hosted by John Long, Technology Program Specialist at School District of Palm Beach County, and Terry Shay, Dot Day Founder and music teacher at North Tama High School in Iowa. Didn't make it to the chat? Not a problem! Follow the feed on twitter: #FableLearnChat. Here are a few of the highlights.
13 Days and 13 Ways to Celebrate Dot Day
Join million students, teachers, and librarians this International Dot Day, celebrating creativity and courage in 186 countries on or around September 15th-ish! To support your International Dot Day festivities, we assembled this handy list of 15 ways in 15 days to celebrate Dot Day.
1) Discover The Dot
Read The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds to see where all of this started - you can grab a copy over at The Dot Central.
2) Register Your Class
Join the growing community celebrating International Dot Day by registering over at The Dot Club! You can also download our FREE Educator’s Handbook for Dot Day, which features student handouts by Peter H. Reynolds and Dot Day activities by creative educators.
3) Get Inspired by the First Dot Day Class
Learn what Dot Day means to the students of the first class to ever participate in Dot Day, straight from the students themselves. In this video, seniors from Traer, Iowa, who first celebrated Dot Day as fourth graders in 2009, reflect on the history and growth of this creativity movement.
4) Check Out Celebri-dots
Head over to the Celebri-dots website to check out dots created by a variety of individuals, from authors and illustrators to actors and astronauts! Packed with dots from all walks of life - paint dots, pie dots, and even Earth dots - you’ll be sure to find inspiration there.
5) Dot Day Song
Listen, sing, and move to "The Dot Song" with kidlit singer/songwriter Emily Arrow!
6) Gear Up
Stock up on official International Dot Day gear by visiting The Dot Central for materials such as an autographed copy of The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds, sticker packs, t-shirts, and posters! If you want even more Dot Day gear, you can also download free multi-language Dot Day posters.
7) Poke Around Pinterest
Still don’t have enough dots in your day for Dot Day? Visit our International Dot Day Pinterest board to see how others celebrate Dot Day with activities, resources, and more!
8) Download Quiver
Quiver brings your 2D art to life through 3D augmented reality so you can interact with your Dot Day artwork in exciting new ways! Download the free Quiver - 3D Coloring App and print out this template to get started.
9) Connect the Dots with Other Teachers
Looking to "connect the dots" with other classrooms nationally and internationally on Dot Day? Whether it's through email or web-based video connection, use the Dot Day Google Doc to make connections. Thanks to creative librarian/educators Shannon McClintock Miller @shannonmmiller, Andy Plemmons @plemmonsa, and Matthew Winner @matthewwinner for overseeing this effort!
10) Fabricate Your Dot
Fab@School Maker Studio is a perfect tool for cultivating your inventive spirit! With this paper prototyping and fabrication software, flex your design muscles and create 2D, Pop-up, and 3D paper models inspired by The Dot. It’s easy to get your design mind rolling when you start small - you can always try again and again! Try fabricating dots that fold, roll, spin, or transform!
11) Make Your Mark Move
With Animation-ish it’s never been easier to bring your drawings to life. Three distinct levels let you practice and animation motion techniques by making your dots roll, bounce, squish, grow, morph, and much more. What can your dots do? Just make your mark and see where it take you!
12) Find Your Ramon
Just like Vashti’s teacher encouraged her to “make her mark,” Vashti later used what she learned to encourage Ramon to make his own mark. Now’s your chance - go out and find your Ramon and encourage them to make their mark too!
13) Share Your Mark
Share your mark and connect with the International Dot Day community through social media! There are over 8 million individuals from 168 countries participating in International Dot Day, so make sure to share your mark with all of them across social media with #MakeYourMark and with the official Dot Club Twitter feed @DotClubConnect!
Francis W. Parker School Wins Award for Collaborative Dot Day Program
Collaboration was the framework of Francis W. Parker’s award-winning Dot Day program. For their 2016 celebration, school librarians, educational technology specialists, and first-grade teachers combined technology and literature to support the messages in Peter H. Reynold’s book, The Dot.
The Chicago-based school received the 2017 American Association of School Librarians’ (AASL) Collaborative School Library Award for their unique project, “Dot Day: How Do We Work Together as Collaborators to Make Our Mark?” This award recognizes the beneficial collaboration between school librarians and teachers to truly make the most out of the library resources in a school curriculum system.
The award-winning team includes first-grade teachers Sarah Weitz, Bev Greenberg, and Tisha Johnson, librarian Mary Catherine Coleman, and educational technology specialist Sarah Beebe. To kick off their project, the teachers read the book, The Dot, and encouraged their students to reflect on ways they make their mark in their individual lives, their community, and in their first-grade class. Then, at the library, the students went on and really made their mark with the awesome ArtBot creation.
FableVision Learning reached out to Mary Catherine Coleman to learn more about the project and plans for Dot Day 2017.
How did you learn about International Dot Day? When was the first celebration?
I heard about Dot Day a couple a years ago from School Library Journal, blogs, and library circles. At the library we have always celebrated Dot Day with reading the book and doing Dot-inspired art projects, but this is the first year we collaborated and planned an extensive project around the day.
What themes from the book The Dot did you use in your school’s celebration and how did you implement them into your program?
Students focused on the themes of art and creativity as well as growth mindset, risk taking and learning new skills. Students focused on the ideas of how we make and create art. We talked about different ways we “make our mark” and students shared different ways they create art. We also talked about being open to trying new things and continuing to to try a new skill even if we are not “good” at it to start. Students talked about how Vashti changed from the beginning of the story till the end. They brainstormed words to describe how Vashti was feeling at the beginning and words they would use to describe her feelings at the end of the story. Students focused on how important and rewarding it can be to try something new and to keep trying something even if you are not perfect at it to start.
We then combined those themes in a culminating project where students were tasked with designing and building a robot that created a unique piece of artwork.
Can you tell us a bit about ArtBot 2016 and how it connected to Dot Day?
The ArtBot 2016 project was a way to connect Dot Day with literacy, the first grade curriculum of community, design and maker building together. Students focused on the idea from the book of making your mark with art and also how we make our mark on other people’s hearts by how we treat others. This idea connected with the first grade curriculum of community and how are we a good and helpful member of our classroom, school, and larger community. We focused on how we work with others when we collaborate. Students brainstormed and thought about a time they created something with someone else and what made that an enjoyable experience. They shared their ideas and we sorted them into themes. Students realized there were four important qualities that contribute to being a good collaborator: listen, compromise, work together, and everyone is included.
Next, students were put into small groups and given the challenge to design and build a working robot that would create unique works of art. First students set the norms for their group, what would be the rules they would follow to make sure that they were being good collaborators based on the collaborator qualities. Some of the ideas included going around the group for everyone to share their design ideas first to ensure everyone was able to share, to prevent interrupting, students putting a thumb up when someone was speaking to illustrate they wanted to talk next, and making sure at least one idea from each team member was included in the robot design. Next, students designed their robots and starting building. During this process there were many connections with The Dot theme of continuing to try something even if you are not successful the first time. Many of the first designs students had for the robots did not work. They worked with their groups to talk about what went wrong and try new ideas to get the robot working. Finally, every groups produced a working ArtBot and created unique pieces of art that were displayed in our Dot Day art gallery in the school. This was inspired by the Dot art show that Vashti had at the end of the book.
The collaborator qualities that the first grade students came up with have been used throughout the school year in their classrooms and in the library in other collaborative projects and activities that we have done. Students use the protocol developed during the ArtBot project to help them be good collaborators.
*Click here to see some amazing videos of the ArtBots in action!
Francis W. Parker School recently received the 2017 American Association of School Librarians’ (AASL) Collaborative School Library Award that recognizes and emphasizes school librarian and teacher collaboration while implementing library resources. What is the dynamic of this relationship in your school, and what sorts of activities do you collaborate on/with?
We make every effort to cultivate a culture of collaboration at Francis W. Parker. We combined the library and Tech Ed departments and created a collaborative project time so that we were able to do more projects like the ArtBot project. Our administration is very supportive and gives teachers time to plan and work together to design lessons and projects that combine the curriculum of the classroom and the library and Tech Ed department so that students have deeper learning opportunities.
We have collaborated with third grade classroom teachers and the science teacher on a zoo animal project. The unit combined the informative writing curriculum, scientific study of animals in the wild, zoos and conservation, technology skills including green screen video, research skills, and a design component that included designing a zoo habitat that was in the best interest of the animal based on research about the animal’s habitat, food source and behavior.
We did an in-depth fourth grade project around fairy tales from around the world and literature themes in the book The Tale of Despereaux. Students were challenged with reading and identifying themes in different fairy tales from cultures from around the world. Students then illustrated scenes from the fairy tale that best highlighted a theme and used LittleBits circuits to make their scenes interactive with motion, light and sound.
We also did a design project with kindergarten classes. They read the story of Little Red Riding Hood and focused on different elements of a story including beginning, middle, and end, characters, problem and setting. Students then designed a safer way to get Little Red from her house to her grandmother’s house. Kindergarteners worked with teachers to design their solutions in Tinkercad and 3D printed their ideas. Ideas included a hot air balloon, a fence to protect the path, and a taxi to drive her to grandma’s house.
Our goal is to continue to expand the projects and lessons we collaborate on with our classroom and subject teachers so that students in every grade are doing 2-3 in-depth collaborative projects a year.
What are your plans for Dot Day 2017?
We will be using The Dot book again in the 2017 school year. It is a great book to launch our first collaborative project of the year with first graders. We will definitely be using the collaborator qualities protocol so that next year’s first graders will have ownership in the qualities of a collaborator that we will be using throughout the year. We will most likely change the project that they work on. We will have a planning day this summer with our whole collaborative team, including first grade classroom teachers, technology and library, to plan for the 2017-18 school year. Next year’s project will definitely include design, building and maker elements. We would love to include new technologies and building materials. We are always learning about new things and being inspired by so many great educators that we follow on twitter and meet at conferences. Whatever we end up doing, The Dot and Dot Day is always such an inspiration and provides a great foundation for our project.
Curious about Dot Day? International Dot Day, celebrated on September 15th-ish, is a global celebration of creativity, courage and collaboration, and began when teacher Terry Shay introduced his classroom to Peter H. Reynolds’ book The Dot. Last year, over 7 million students in 166 countries joined the celebration. You can join here!
Teacher Spotlight: Anne Turner, Kindergarten Teacher at North Tama County Community School
Every day is a new adventure for Anne Turner. As a kindergarten teacher at North Tama County Community School in Traer, Iowa, she encourages hands-on, active participation in her classroom with STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) at the center of her lessons.
“I love creating new things, whether it’s new STEM centers at school, books with my students, or crafts at home,” she says. “Every day is a new adventure!”
Her love for creating new things sparked an innovative nature that she uses while teaching her kindergartens. Whether it’s producing books, developing STEM centers, or making arts and crafts, she says that hands-on, experiential learning is the way to go.
For the Teacher Spotlight, Anne, a FableVision Learning Ambassador, recently shared her favorite things about being a teacher, how she applies Stationery Studio in the classroom, and how she and her students had a blast on International Dot Day 2016!
Tell us about your classroom; what is a typical day like?
My kindergarten classroom is full of fun! A typical day starts with morning meetings and welcomes. We then get the opportunity to explore different STEM centers. We do many book read-alouds throughout the whole day and this will start a new learning adventure! We focus on literacy and math throughout the day as well, connecting everything together and creating hands on fun… In the afternoons, we focus on Daily 5 and guided reading centers that encourage our independence as young readers and writers!
Daily 5 are centers we rotate through that help us learn on a more individualized level. Each child rotates through guided reading (individual work with Mrs. Turner), read to self or to someone else, listen to reading, work on words, and work on writing. These centers can include activities from our STEM investigation, or working on our leveled readers and things we struggle with. The kids go at their own pace and include their own interests!
What is a STEM center?
These centers are a great way to connect everything you learn in school together and spiral kids’ learning. We don’t have just science or reading time anymore. Let’s say we are meeting the standard ‘analyze data to determine if a design solution works as intended to change the speed or direction of an object with a push or a pull.’ We would, in our STEM investigation, build ramps and use different types of balls to conduct tests. We would also meet our reading standards by looking at different types of texts to support this and by dictating opinion pieces based off of the pictures we take of each others ramps. They become pretty big writing projects. So, STEM, to us in our room, is mixing all of our learning together to truly understand!
I hear you have some snazzy uses for Stationery Studio, can you share a few?
We use Stationery Studio almost daily! I use the software to create different styles of writing pages to encourage the kids to write and help them get new ideas. I also insert images that connect to a book we've read to help use continue to write about our findings. It is greatly beneficial to my students because they have writing lines (head line, belt line, and foot line) that help guide them to write legibly. With the fun pictures and borders, they are much more encouraged to write. When the kids take a picture of their creation or investigation, and we print it and glue it on the Stationery Studio paper, they feel great ownership!
Dot Day 2016 was huge at your school this year, can you share how your students got ready for the day?
My students love International Dot Day! This celebration is new to them and we may have read The Dot about 20 times! Our students started learning about how special they are and how we are all unique. We brought in families to see how each family dynamic is unique. We also learned about mixing paint colors to make our own dot and tried to cut out a circle. We had fun decorating dots to fill our halls! As a whole elementary school, each student got to decorate coffee filters and hang them in our hallways to fill the windows. It was so beautiful! Our class also explored all of Peter H. Reynolds’ books, one being The Water Princess. We helped raise $50 for Ryan’s Well as we found it shocking that people in our world struggled for water every day.
What was your favorite 2016 International Dot Day moment?
My favorite International Dot Day moment this year was getting Peter H. Reynolds into our classroom to talk to my students. Their faces were glowing! We talked about typical “kindergarten” things, like frogs and other random things. Mr. Reynolds drew us a new idea for a book called “Toad the Artist” because the students got stuck on talking about frogs and toads. We are currently working on creating this book! Peter H. Reynolds inspired a lot of people that day at North Tama.
What has been your favorite moment as a teacher?
My favorite moment as a teacher is working with the kids. I love our Daily 5 centers because I get time to work with the kids on learning individual skills, making books, and writing letters that the kids want to create. We have also extended chapter books and had lots of fun together doing that!
You are new to the league of FableVision Ambassadors. What are you looking forward to?
I am always looking to learn! I am anxious to explore everything and to use what I learn with my kindergarten students. Always up for new things!
Are YOU – or someone you know - activating any of FableVision’s books, media, and/or software to approach learning in more creative, engaging ways? If you'd like to nominate someone for the FableVision Creative Educator Spotlight, click here and complete your submission electronically.
Dot Day: Shea’s Story
At the 2016 International Society for Technology Education Conference in Denver, CO, Peter H. Reynolds had the good fortune to meet an exceptional educator, Alice Gentili.
Alice shared the story of Shea, a young art student, and the transformative effect of International Dot Day.
This is her story in her own words:
Shea’s Story
Late March 2008, I was six and I had a headache.
Then I could barely walk and I passed out. My dad drove me to the hospital. My mom came shortly afterward. It was discovered later that day that I had an AVM blood vessel in my brain, and it had ruptured.
An AVM is a knot of a bunch of blood vessels in the brain. They are very rare. They occur in less than one percent of the world's population. Even then they are less common in females, the chances of surviving one are slim.
Even if one did manage to survive they would likely suffer severe side effects, such as severe brain damage, field vision loss, blindness, numbness or weakness in one or more areas of the body, language difficulties, or not being able to walk again.
The doctors suspected that, even though I would have to get surgery, I would not survive. I have left side weakness now. Although that is partially because I got Bell’s Palsy twice on the left side of my face before I turned two. I also have partial field vision loss on the left side of each of my eyes. I still have 20/20 vision otherwise though.
***
Shea and Mrs. Gentili
It was in art class in fifth grade.
That day my art teacher, Mrs. Gentili, told us it was International Dot Day. That was a day named after a picture book, "The Dot" by Peter H. Reynolds.
Mrs. Gentili read the book to us and there was one sentence, that I remember, that inspired me, that ended up influencing who I am as an artist. The sentence read, "Make a mark and see where it takes you."
We had to draw dots of our own after reading the book. That gave me an idea, and when I get an idea there's no stopping me. When I got home that day I pulled out a small, unused sketchbook and some markers. Probably the least sophisticated markers of all time but they worked for me.
When I was at my little brother's soccer practice that day I began. I drew a dot that resemblesa marble of sorts, using four different colors: light blue, bright blue, light green, and bright purple.
About a month or so later I came into art class with a completed dot journal. It was filled with dots I had drawn with similar designs as the first and all sorts of colors. Mrs. Gentili loved it, she made a video of it and put it on YouTube.
I would go to create more dot journals after that, as well as taking sculpture classes and other classes. Completing a collection of more than 365 drawings on Sketchbook Express, and finishing at least two other sketchbooks. I am in the process of finishing a third. Circles, dots would be a part of almost every drawing, painting, or sculpture I did after that.
Eighth grade was my last year in middle school. We had a little graduation ceremony and an awards ceremony before hand. I was one of the two people who got the Georgia O'Keefe award.
Afterwards somehow everyone in the school knew who I was. Probably because my fifth grade art teacher, Mrs. Gentili put it on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter because she was so proud of me. I honestly didn't like the attention and publicity at first. I'm not mad at her for it though. I saw her, Mrs. Gentili, afterwards. She told me that she felt that it all began with "The Dot," my dot journals. I told her she was right. It did.
"The Dot" turned the visual arts into my number one passion.
A Special Dot Day Message from From Peter H. Reynolds
How are you making your mark this Sept. 15-ish? Tweet at us using #DotDay and let us know!
Let's Have a High-Tech Dot Day!
Want to incorporate technology into your Dot Day festivities but don't know how to get started? Check out these high-tech-inspired projects! And be sure to share your own ideas with us on Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter:
Facebook: FableVision Learning, International Dot Day, #DotDay
Pinterest: International Dot Day Board
Twitter: @FableLearn, @DotClubConnect, #DotDay
1. Fabricate Dot Day Projects With FabMaker Studio
Students can use FabMaker Studio to make their mark. Try your hand at creating a Dot Day pop-up or assembling an automaton (found in the ready-mades folder). They can also let their creativity run free by creating their own Dot Day projects!
2. Make Your Mark Move With Animation-ish
Have your students create animations using Animation-ish. Already have the program and ready to get started? Download Peter H. Reynolds' official International Dot Day starter animation for Animation-ish here.
3. Experience Augmented Reality With QuiverVision's 3D Coloring App
Imagine turning your 2D Dot Day dot design into a 3D sphere. With QuiverVision's coloring page and 3D Coloring App you can do just that! Print the coloring page, download the app (Apple App Store, Google Play), and you'll be all set to start making your mark!
Celebrating Dot Day this year? Remember to register here!