Dot Day: Reflections and Connections

The first step in the Dot Day Project was reading the book The Dot by Peter Reynolds. Before I started reading the book I asked students to think about the beginning, middle and end of the story and what they noticed about Vashti, the main character, from the beginning of the story and the end of the story. If you have not read the story Go Read it! It’s a great book! Also here is a link to the summary and reviews on Goodreads http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/825377.The_Dot if you want to learn a bit more about the book.

The next step was for students to reflect on how Vashti changed in the books from the beginning to the end. I asked the students to think of the words from the book that described our character at the beginning. Words that came up included “can’t”, “won’t”, and “scared.” Then I asked for words that described Vashti at the end. Those words included “trying” “experimenting” “encouraging others” and “can do it.” We posted all these words on our reflection board.

The next step was to talk about the idea of how we can make our mark. We talked about the ways that Vashti made her mark on paper with art. Students talked about how she made big dots, small dots, tried all different colors and designs and she even made a dot without making a dot. Then we talked about how we make our marks on other people’s hearts with the way that we treat them. Students focused on ways that they make their mark on their classmates. Some of the ideas included “helping others” “sharing skills” “treating people the way we would like to be treated” and “sharing with each and listening to each other.” All of these ideas and thoughts were added to our board.

The final step before our project was to talk about “How do we work together as collaborators to make our mark?” I asked students to close their eyes and think of a time either at school, home or play where they worked with someone else. Students talked about building legos at home with a sibling, playing on their Saturday soccer team and working in math pairs. I asked what was the most important thing to make sure everyone collaborated and worked together? Their ideas included “listening to each other,” “sharing responsibility for materials,” “everyone has a part,” and “compromising.” All of these ideas were added to our board.

These collaboration qualities are going to be the norms for each group as they work together to build their art robots starting next week. My goal is to have an adult with each group of three students to listen, observe, document and remind students of our collaboration norms as they work through the robot building project and the art creation.

Next step: Art Bot building!