Dot Day (Ish Week) Lots of Dots & Many Connections!

One of my favorite weeks of the school year is the week we celebrate International Dot Day! It turns into a whole week of connections and discussing ways to make our mark. It always seems funny to call it "Dot Day Week" so this year I heard it being called "Ish Week" which I LOVED!  This celebration is centered around the book, The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds. There are many good lessons in this book including being brave, encouraging others, and making your mark, whatever your mark may be!

Before school even starts, connections are being made. Shannon Miller & Matthew Winner, two librarians and Dot Day Ambassadors, created a Google doc to manage all of the connections. Matthew has several great blog posts about Dot Day and lesson ideas! When it was all said and done, there were over 60 pages of schedules and requests for connections! We always try to connect every class that visits the library during this week, and this year we even brought in extra classes! At Curtis, connecting with people outside the walls of our school is a normal part of our year, so students begin in kindergarten learning how to interact with others through Skype and Google Hangouts. It is always fun to watch the expression on the kinders faces the first time they connect!

This year, we connected with students in Flower Mound, Texas, Illinois, Vermont , Georgia, Connecticut, Washington, Iowa, Missouri, Frisco, Texas, Wisconsin, Massachusettes, Friendswood, Texas, Austin, Texas, Maine & Maryland! We even connected with some states twice, with different schools! 

Usually, there would only be a few pictures on the blog, but this year I just couldn't narrow them down, so an Animoto presentation was created to show the great week we had!! Enjoy!