We celebrated International Dot Day, a worldwide celebration of creativity, courage, and making your mark. Inspired by Peter H. Reynolds’ The Dot, we read about Vashti, a child who discovers that one small mark can be the beginning of something much bigger. More than 34 million people in over 190 countries have participated in Dot Day, making our first-grade celebration part of a truly global community!

Just like Vashti, we turned simple dots into creative ideas and explored where our imaginations could take us. We even connected Dot Day to math by using dot markers to create our own dot collections, then counting and graphing our collections. It was a wonderful way to remind our first graders that their ideas matter, creativity can take many forms, and sometimes all it takes is one small mark to get started!