International Dot Day, a global celebration of creativity, courage and collaboration, began when teacher Terry Shay introduced his classroom to Peter H. Reynolds’ book The Dot on September 15, 2009.

The Dot is the story of a caring teacher who dares a doubting student to trust in her own abilities by being brave enough to “make her mark”. What begins with a small dot on a piece of paper becomes a breakthrough in confidence and courage, igniting a journey of self-discovery and sharing, which has gone on to inspire countless children and adults around the globe.

In celebration of our success this first week of Kindergarten, we ended the week with a dot party of our own! First,we joined Ms.Widmayer’s class for a community reading of the book. Next we got messy! We created one of a kind dot creations using watercolors. We collaborated on a group mural using tempera paint. We thought about how we would make our mark this year.Then the children brainstormed “I can..” lists and wrote about their goals. We had fun doing dot to dot puzzles. Last , we used dot stickers and exercised our fine motor muscles as well as our creative juices creating dot collages.