Dot Day 2014 a celebration of creativity. It's Monday What Are You Reading? #IMWAYR

It's Monday! What are you Reading is a meme began by Sheila at Book Journeys as a way to share what you read and/or reviewed the previous week and what is in store for the upcoming week. It's also a great chance to see what others are reading. I first learned about it from Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee and Ricki of Unleashing Readers and have become a regular linked up blog. Thanks #PLN

Dot Day Celebration

We started Dot Day a little early this year, in fact, we started two weeks before Dot Day. I read The Dot to all classes and collaborated with our new art teacher. One of my favorite parts about Dot Day this year was using The Dot Song.


Make Your Mark bookmarks: Download here

We also learned about the art of pointillism and obliteration art. A virtual trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art allowed us to take a "closer look" at the works of Georges Seurat and Paul Signac. The link shown above is a DOTS DOTS DOTS sing along.


A book of looking at art
through the eyes of children and Dots!

Spot the dog and a dot headed Ms. Murphy greet families to Open House night and invite them to create family dots. Thanks to Barnes and Noble for lending us Spot the dog for the evening.







Spot was the highlight of the evening. Families were excited to snap a candid photo of their children having a great time. Spot was quite the celebrity under a lightning storm of camera flashes.

I found several items that would work well for creating dot shapes.

 4, 5 and 6th graders worked together in groups to create these welcome dots to 

greet families to Open House night.

Kinder kiddos made these window art dots. Here are a few samples.

 

I collaborated with our art teacher and she focused on her lessons on ancient civilizations and cave paintings. These are samples of foil etchings her students created. She also let 2nd graders crawl under their desks to get a feel for cave art.

Upper grades created original art that they cut into quarters and exchanged with other grade levels. Don't they look great?

We didn't forget our old friend Bot. Our Boy + Bot book by Ame Dyckman has stayed checked out every since school started but we still wanted to "Give Bot the Chicken Pox" dots again. It gave me a good time to talk to kids about a time when children used to catch chicken pox and how today's children will not have to experience chicken pox.



Well, you might have guessed by now but I haven't done a great deal of reading this week other than Dot Day reading and a lot of research on education topics.

I look forward to setting aside some time for Young Adult fiction for an upcoming Twitter chat and for our first annual Teen Book Fest by the Bay. Yesh, it's tough to stay on top of emergent reading through Young Adult reading. I read all levels since I work with kids from age 3 to university students. I find all level books fascinating.

  

Dot Day, David, and Turtle 2013 #IMWAYR

It's Monday! What are you Reading? is a meme began by Sheila at Book Journeys as a way to share what you read and/or reviewed the previous week and what is in store for the upcoming week. It's also a great chance to see what others are reading. I first learned about it at Teach Mentor Texts. 


Of course we are reading The Dot and celebrating DOT DAY!

It's funny how a one day celebration of creativity can stretch out into three weeks of fun and learning. Every student from the PK 3-year old class to our sixth graders have now listened to the story of Vashti's journey into discovering the artist in herself. 

We have been searching for dots, creating our dots, and obliterating our library with dots! We are even covering Ame Dyckman's Bot with Dots! (picture will be forthcoming=Think Boy + Bot + Dot). We are calling it "Let's Give Bot the Chicken Pox" and covering our giant size Bot in dots. 

Here is our good buddy, Mr. Bones, the Library Watch Dog reading The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds. Way to go Mr. Bones!

One of our favorite reads this week:

PK 3 year olds are still having to brush up on good behavior expectations for school. They are having a hard time transitioning to life within a school routine and have a tendency to just get up and walk around their classroom when the mood strikes them. I decided I could help their teacher out by sharing one of my favorite stories with them- No David by David Shannon. As we read the story, I encouraged students to tell me if David was showing good behavior or naughty behavior. This is always a hit with the little ones.  Personally, David freaks me out a little with those sharp fangs. 

I love this activity: Texas teacher Michelle Ayala took her Kinder class on a hunt for David in her school. Naughty David left his messy paint splattered hands all over the school making it easy for kids to track him. Ms. Ayala's Kinder class was determined to locate David and explain the best way to be a good student in school before he did something crazy like climb up up above the white board. Oh no, too late! Read more about here at: Kinder Fun







Book Club Read:
Turtle in Paradise by Jenni Holm
Want to join the fun? Read Turtle in Paradise and join us on Monday, September 23 at 9 pm EST/8 CST. Use the hashtag #virtualbookclub on Twitter to connect with fellow readers. 
Summary from Common Sense Media
When her mother gets a job as a housekeeper for a rich woman who will not abide children, 11-year-old Turtle is sent to live with her relatives in Key West. This all happens during the Great Depression, and no one is living too high off the hog, especially the Conches. However, a place is made for her, and her cat, and they all make do. Turtle pitches in with the group of boys that include her cousins and their friends, fishes for sponges with Slow Poke (who turns out to be her dad), builds a relationship with her grumpy grandmother, searches for treasure -- and finds it.  In the end, she learns important lessons about what having real family means, and that life often does not have a "Hollywood ending," even when it turns out.

Visit my 2011 Bluebonnet Book Club page: Turtle in Paradise
Visit the Jenni Holm's website to hear what inspired her to write Turtle in Paradise. 

I like this book trailer for Turtle in Paradise but the music is all wrong for the era. 



Turtle in Paradise activities:

This activity comes from Kids Blog
In this story Turtle finds a map. If you like maps and the idea of following one to find something, give these a try.
You can use the Map Machine to make your own map.

• National Parks Service **Reading a Map** Activity & Quiz
• National Geographic **Map Machine**. Enter your address and the machine will show you a road map of your neighborhood, satellite view of your neighborhood and sometimes a bird’s eye view too. Cool!

Happy International Dot Day (week) go forth and read for fun!

Dots, Dots, Everywhere Dots! Getting Ready for Dot Day 2013 #IMWAYR 9-9-2013

It's Monday! What are you Reading? is a meme began by Sheila at Book Journeys as a way to share what you read and/or reviewed the previous week and what is in store for the upcoming week. It's also a great chance to see what others are reading. I first learned about it at Teach Mentor Texts. 

Sure I read a few books this week, but the only one I am talking about today on #IMWAYR is 
The Dot by Peter Reynolds. I read this book to every class and they all loved it. We had a small Dot Day Celebration last year but this year we are doing it up big time.

I met with our new art teacher who was very intrigued by the idea and immediately agreed to collaborate with me. She is teaching students the art technique of Pointillism. Every grade level will approach their dot projects a little differently. For example, three year old PK students will be adding dots to a Pete the Cat page. Older grades will create a in depth project consisting only of dots to create an image of an object or person. We liked the part of the story when Vashti's dots were featured in a school art gallery so our Fifth and Sixth graders will be in charge of setting up our very own "Dot" Gallery to display ECDC students' works of art.



Most kids found this dot fascinating. I think they might decide to try their arts skills at a "dot without making a dot"

Do The DOT!

Peter Reynolds shares The Dot book related activities

Be inspired by the gorgeous Dots at Celebri-Dot

This website features dots created by authors and illustrators. It is remarkable to see the originality and personality in each dot. These dots are good examples for students to see and begin to come up with their own creative dots. 


We really liked this Celebri-Dot  by Cynthia Lord. Her book Rules is one of our favorites. 

If you want to see more amazingly creative Celebri-Dots, click here

Mr. Bones is ready for Dot Day!

 

It's not too late to sign up for Dot Day 2013! You can sign up HERE


Check out my International Dot Day Pinterest Board
I have had a lot of fun collecting resources for Dot Day and saving them to my Pinterest Board. (love Pinterest almost as much as I love Twitter).






Pointillism

This beautiful example of Pointillism art "Touch the Sun" was created by Hungarian artist Sakura Chrno 

Pointillism: 15 striking examples of dot art 

I am looking forward to seeing all the wonderful dots created by our students but I needed to learn a little bit more about Pointillism too. This is what helped me a lot.  Click HERE

Mr. P Studio demonstrates Pointillism, Great idea for Dot Day using paint and Q-Tips.

Here is a very nice Pinterest Board "Pointillism for Kids"

Pointillism technique using pencils as stampers from Classic Play

Good-bye my Angel Boy!

This week, I plan on reading lots and lots of pictures books to my grandson who is moving away to Tennessee. The choice of books will be his to make. How will I ever survive without my little angel boy? My heart is broken. I will make sure to become his new school's best book donor and send a new book or two each month on his behalf. Hopefully that will make his transition a little easier and maybe he won't forget his BB (Best Buddy).