Sunday, September 18, 2016

A Pathway of Dots

After reading Peter Reynold's book, The Dot, last week 3rd graders designed dots in a segment that was to become a larger, collaborative "pathway of dots."

 They used a color system of cool colors to create the path and warm colors with a cool center to design their dots. The actual lesson can be found here. The only addition I made to that lesson was to have students use their 4 fingers (not including their thumb) to measure the width of their pathway. That gives the path continuity when putting the segments together.



Kids LOVE seeing how the segments can be attached in different ways! This is fun for them to do on the rug in groups before it actually goes up on the wall!!

Thursday, September 8, 2016

Another International Dot Day Audition

Am I obsessed with Dot Day or what??!! There are just so many places you can go with dots that I find it hard to decide which ideas to use in the classroom. Here is another project that I am thinking about for this year. It is a collaborative effort I am calling Dot Pathways.

This lesson requires simple materials which you can see in the photo below. I like Crayola watercolor markers.

The pathway starts with two watercolor marker lines creating a "channel" within which students will draw and design their dots, using either warm or cool crayons. 



Notice that the marker lines are either warm or cool and all but the very center of dots are the opposite (warm/cool).

Once the dots are designed, kids use a paintbrush and clear water to draw the watercolor marker into the pathway and the background. This is a good opportunity to talk about using just the tip of the brush and which direction to draw out the water. I like to have them paint the pathway quickly with plain water before drawing the watercolor color into the water.

When all is dry, students can join their pathways to create a whole collaborative network of paths.