Copperas Cove students connect the dots for International Dot Day

By WENDY SLEDD

Special to the Leader-Press

Dots on socks, dots on shirts, dots on pants, dots on scarves, dots on paper. They even had dots on their faces. Fairview/Miss Jewell Elementary kindergarten students celebrated International Dot Day.

The book by Peter H. Reynolds tells the story of how an art teacher made an impact on a student who felt that she could not draw as well as other students. The teacher encouraged her to make her own mark and sign her masterpiece. What started out as a small dot, in the end, turned into the student’s journey of determining who she was, said kindergarten teacher Brandy Oliveras.

“Kindergarten can be extremely challenging and sometimes even intimidating for students when they are introduced to things like writing and drawing, especially if they have never been in a school setting,” Oliveras said. “Dot day is wonderful way to teach kids that they are capable of some amazing things even when they don't believe it themselves. ’The Dot’ book really helps them to make the positive connection that people, like their teachers, are their biggest advocates.”   

Oliveras says one of the best things about Dot Day is the wide variety of activities in which students may engage.

“The author of the book has videos where he is creating beautiful imaginative artwork from a simple dot. There are hand-motion songs that get the students involved and feeling positive about how they can make a mark on the world,” Oliveras said. “It's easy to incorporate colorful dots in all the lessons whether it's creating art, writing about something they dream about doing, finding letters by marking them with dots, or even using colorful Skittle dots to learn math concepts like sorting and graphing.” 

The kindergarteners enjoyed making everything related to dots, having so much fun they did not realize how much they were learning.

"In the book, Vashti put a dot on the paper, and she did not like it. But her teacher looked at it and she put it on the wall because she was proud of it. Then later, Vashti wanted to make everything better so she made a whole bunch of different dot pictures,” said kindergartener Sohpia Moineau, age 5. “That's called inspired."

Oliveras said the best part of Dot Day was watching students encourage each other when they felt a task was too hard. 

“The lessons in Dot Day went beyond bravery, creativity and self-expression, and were reflected in the compassion they were showing each other,” Oliveras said. “This day really resonates with me because when you think about it, isn't that how teachers are created?  Some teacher somewhere sparked a little something inside all of us to have the courage to make one small mark that inspired us to be that person in the book for decades of students.  It's a very simple concept, yet so very special.