Dot Day Project

Description: In class, we listened to the book called, The Dot, by Peter H. Reynolds. The book was about a young girl, named Vashti, who looked down on her drawing abilities. Her teacher encouraged her to start drawing with just a dot, which later turned into huge art pieces. For this project, we had to create our own dot. We used a coffee filter and used multiple types of mediums to create our project. I used markers, oil pastels, crayons, and sharpies. I wrote my name with a white crayon in the middle, drew circles with sharpies, outlined the middle and added lines with oil pastels, and used markers to make some colors stand out more. Once we were done with that, we used watercolors to make the colors bleed, which would complete the project.

Extension Activity: I'll have students do a project similar to this. I'll have them color and design a coffee filter however they want, and then I'll have them write three stress-relieving strategies on their dot project that either works for them or they want to try to do/use. Some examples could be, "When I feel stressed, I can...", "A small thing that calms me is...", or "When I take a deep breath, I feel...". When they are all finished, I will hang them up on a wall, and have a "Stress-Free Gallery Wall" to promote classroom community and it'll be a good reminder of some tools and techniques students can use when they are feeling stressed.