By Terry Shay:
A Special Dot Day Activity
Mary Alice Ramsey (Twitter: @ma_ramsey) shares this awesome Chihuly inspired Dot Day project. Dale Chihuly uses glass to make beautiful objects and this project introduces them to an artist and also lets them make something beautiful. Mary writes, “Like Chihuly, I’m a collaborative artist. I know what I want, but need others to help me along the way. Anne Courie-Meulink (@acmeulink) is that person for me.”
- Take 1 oz mini plastic cups (clear plastic)
- Students color the inside with sharpies,
- Place cups on cookie sheet with the bottom up if you want more bowl-like shapes. Bottom down (or face up and crack the cups) if you want curvy shapes.
- Melt in the oven for two to three minutes at 275 degree
-You will know when they are done when they look like they’ve melted together - Pull out and quickly separate the dots.
-If you put cuts or cracks in the cups, they make super cool shapes
The final “dots” will be made into a stained glass window-ish.
Author Visits
Recently, I read some posts on Facebook about how expensive it is to have an author visit. Although cost is certainly a factor, I think it’s important to weigh the value by what students and teachers get out of it. The author visit program in my school was suggested by secretary Suzanne Earley a few years ago after seeing visits shared on Twitter. Since we began the program, we have hosted Drew Daywalt, Kirby Larson, Peter H. Reynolds, and this year we will be welcoming Anika Denise. In my opinion, these visits have been life-changing for our students. To have published authors speak to kids about perseverance and the power of revising your writing has been so powerful.
We use grant funding and community organization donations to pay for the visits. We are lucky to live in a community that supports the school and the power of reading to change lives. I believe the investment in our students is worth it!
Elementary School Counselor Teresa Keefe O’Meara said about our visiting author program:
After our first visit with Drew Daywalt, retired school librarian, Rozella Stull said, “You have to see it to be it” in regard to kids who want to be authors and the impact of meeting authors.
Kindergarten teacher Anne Turner said, “Author visits are an amazing opportunity to meet someone who has inspired you. It is so great to personally hear about the writing process and all of the obstacles that they must push through and to see an amazing outcome that is being shared throughout the world. Our students thrive meeting authors and it helps make reading more personal and exciting!“
Check out my Superintendent’s thoughts on the power of author visits.
I asked a group of fifth graders what they thought of author visits, here are their thoughts:
Dot Day Quote
I received this quote from Argentina and I wanted to share it because I think it gets to the heart of Dot Day:
Dot Day Challenge
What can you do in your classrooms to promote creativity all year long?? Teachers, can you change an assignment to allow for increased creativity? If you’re a student and have an idea for showing the teacher how smart you are in a different way, can you talk to the teacher and respectfully ask if you can do the assignment differently? I challenge you to find a way to use the lessons from Dot Day and make the entire year more creative.
Book Recommendations from The Morning Book Club:
Noah recommends:
Life on Mars by Jon AgeeCaleb recommends:
Poor Louie by Tony FucileDani recommends:
Teacher Cat by Deborah Underwood and illustrated by Claudia RuedaClowey recommends:
Thank you so much for this wonderful review! I really appreciate it : }