I love, love, love Peter Reynolds' books: The Dot, Ish and Sky Color. They neatly address issues of creative self confidence in terms children can understand. The art teacher in The Dot is my personal hero. Actually, she shares that distinction with Harold, of purple crayon fame. My favorite part is when Vashti arrives in art class to find her dot displayed above the teacher's desk "framed in swirly gold." That's the kind of art teacher I want to be. So I decided to start this art year with a dot inspired lesson and lo and behold, it turns out September 15th(ish) is International Dot Day! Apparently it's been celebrated for years. What fun!
First we "signed in" by making a bingo marker dot and signing our names. This poster will be displayed all year.
Together, the older classes (aka the Bigs) created a collaborative dot from a pizza board. Wednesday's class collaged it and Thursday's class added paint.
The mixed-media theme continued with our individual projects. After using several gallons (each) of glitter glue to create our "swirly, gold" frames, the artists made dot themed works using whatever media they chose. Paint, oil pastel, collage, marker...you name it, we used it. The only commonality was dots. Then we signed the finished products.
And here they are, all framed is swirly gold. This is only a portion of the wall, but you can see our collaborative dot in the middle.
Sadly, I don't have a picture of me in my polka-dot dress. I looked pretty great. My daughter and I spent an afternoon thrifting and found the perfect thing for less than a gallon of gas! It is actually quite lovely, though it got a little old after three days.
Peter Reynolds' books are coming out in a "Creatrilogy" on October 20th so you can get all three in a nice little boxed set!
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