International Dot Day - coming September 15ish

I love Peter Reynold's book, "The Dot".  (In fact, I love ALL his books.)  I'm a proud member of the Dot Club.  If you aren't familiar with "The Dot", it's a wonderfully empowering story about a little girl named Vashti, who felt she couldn't draw.  With a little nudge from her Art teacher, she not only becomes an artist who is unafraid to "make her mark" -- but helps to motivate others to find the creativity within themselves.

Each year, on September 15-ish, students at my school, along with countless others around the world, celebrate International Dot Day.  We wear dots on our clothes and we paint dots with watercolors, draw them with crayons, and color dots with markers -- but we also create using our computers.  For my "littles" it's a great way to introduce our drawing program, Kid Pix Deluxe.

I love using this book as an introduction to Kid Pix Deluxe for my "littles" because, many times they have trouble clicking and dragging to create the lines on the page.  They get frustrated.  They don't believe that what they are drawing is good enough.  I remind them that Vashti kept trying -- she experimented with color and size.  She was BRAVE (see my Brave post from August 20)!!

We talk about the drawing tools and the different options to create dots.  We explore what the pencil lines look like compared to the chalk, crayon, and marker lines.  We learn how to change the color.  We experiment with the size tool.  We draw dots freehand.  We practice clicking and dragging to use the Circle Tool.

LARGE DOTS, little dots, overlapping dots, see-through dots....ALL kinds of dots.

After the kiddos have created their masterpiece, we print them out and they sign them.  These masterpieces join the countless others lining the hallways of my school in celebration of Dot Day.  My kids learn early that they have the power within to MAKE THEIR MARK!

What will you do to make your mark in the world?