International Dot Day

September 15th marks the anniversary of the publication of best-selling author and illustrator Peter H. Reynolds' The Dot.  Starting in 2009, educators began celebrating International Dot Day - a day to celebrate and explore the story's message about creativity, confidence and trying your best.

On Friday, September 14th, we had our own celebration for International Dot Day.  We read the book The Dot on Tumblebooks online.  We talked about the story and the message that Peter H. Reynold's wanted to get across.  Students were then given an opportunity to explore their own creative abilities and to "try their best" while creating their own 'Vashti' inspired dot.

Here is the shared writing that students completed after their Dot art was complete:

After re-reading our shared writing, we revised the draft several times.  Once we were happy with our revisions we edited the draft to polish it for publishing.  Here is our published shared writing:

Here are the students' Dot art on display in the hall in their frames!

This morning I tweeted a picture of the work we did for International Dot Day, I was thrilled to see that Peter H. Reynold's replied to the tweet.  The students clapped, cheered and yelled out "WE'RE FAMOUS!!!!"  A reply tweet from the author himself REALLY helped to boost the confidence of the students and made them extra proud of their art and shared writing.  It was wonderful for them to experience an audience for their work outside of the school community!