Dedham Students Celebrate Dot Day

Students at Dedham’s elementary schools started the school year by showcasing their creativity and determining how they are going to “make their mark” by celebrating Dot Day. This day is celebrated by students all around the world and it began in 2009 with a Facebook message to Peter Reynolds from a music teacher in Iowa, Terry Shay. He encouraged educators to read The Dot to their students and have them be creative. Dot Day is now celebrated annually and Dedham students are part of the over 4 million students who have participated just since 2014. This year students from 119 countries participated in Dot Day. International Dot Day, inspired by Peter Reynolds, is a celebration of creativity, collaboration, and courage. Students at the Dedham elementary schools celebrated Dot Day around September 15th. The Dot is the story of a caring teacher who dares a student to trust in her own abilities by being brave enough to “mark her mark.” She begins with a small dot on a piece of paper, igniting a journey of self-discovery and sharing.

Students and staff at all of the elementary schools celebrated by wearing dots on September 15. During library class, students read The Dot and discussed it. A common theme is how students want to make their mark during this coming school year. Each grade level had a different activity to showcase their creativity.

The first graders worked cooperatively to make a large class dot. These dots now decorate each of the schools.Students in the second grade created “buddy dots”. They decorated a dot that was then cut in half. They traded half with a friend and then the two halves were glued together to form a new dot. The third graders created a picture that began with a simple dot. Each child created a picture incorporating these dots. Students were very creative and made among other things animals and beautiful designs.

At the Greenlodge and Oakdale Schools, the fourth graders created 3d dots by using the app Quiver on the school Ipads. Students first created a dot and the Quiver app then made their dot come to life by making it appear in 3d. At the Avery and Riverdale Schools, students used recite.com to record their goal for the year. Each student could choose a different background to personalize their goal.

Many book authors have created special dots or Celebri-dots in honor of Dot Day. The fifth graders were shown some of these Celebri-dots and then viewed book trailers based on books written by these authors. Book trailers are similar to movie trailers in that they try to grab the viewer’s attention. The goal was to create excitement about reading for this school year.

Dot Day is a wonderful and creative way to start the school year. Students are encouraged to think of how they want to make their mark and trust in their ability to do so.