Dot Day 2016!

Happy Dot Day!

International Dot Day is a favorite holiday of my, besides, of course, Halloween. I have a passion for celebrations that include a big, artful, creative mess.  

As you can see, students clearly do not share my sentiment on the fun of mess. No, sir. Fun-free zone.

This year, students collaborated to create four huge murals, beginning with those awesome fifth graders you see here. I celebrated Dot Day all week, with all of my classes, during which time we read Peter H. Reynold's book The Dot, which some classes also read in Library.

Thanks to having a projector in my room (yay!), students were able to see the book pages, big!

Each class received a prompt to get their thinking started. Materials and prompts were different for each class, all week. The first group was given tempera paints, and I suggested they allow themselves to think abstractly. Not a mandate, just a jumping off point for ideas, to give them a little courage if they were afraid to begin.

A finished dot from that first class of the week.

Subsequent classes made emoji dots, landscape dots, symmetrical dots, food dots (mmm, donuts are so round), mandala dots, and more. 

Close-up of a 4" mandala dot

One group made miniatures in colored pencils. These ones were full of sweet moments, like gnomes under mushrooms, and this mountain scene.

That miniature landscape dot is just about 1" across!

Surrounding the big dots, the background was painted black, and covered with more dots, applied with both cotton swabs and little fingertips.

As children always are, students were full of endless good ideas. The panels used watercolors, tempera, markers, oil pastels, glue, and, of course, glitter. The very last group had the prompt to "make it shine." They took their job very seriously, outlining dots they loved in glitter, and adding zillions of tiny glitter dots to the background.

Mural 1

It was a blast all-around, and the result shows the confidence, collaboration, and creativity of EES students.  Here are the other three completed panels!

Mural 2

Mural 3

Mural 4

If you are in the building, make sure to check out the fabulous student artwork, which is gracing the walls of the Kindergarten/Grade 1 hallway! It has been a great start to an artful next year.