A Dot Day Scavenger Hunt In Nature and MackinVIA

On September 15th over 500,000 people will celebrate International Dot Day around the world.  At Van Meter, we have been celebrating Dot Day all week long.  

The students in K-5 have been celebrating Dot Day and how they make their mark on the world.  Earlier in the week we learned about how nature makes a mark on the world with dots too.  

Our dear friend Diane Cordell, from upstate New York, Skyped into Van Meter and talked with the 5th graders about taking photographs in nature.  

She shared this beautiful presentation Dots in Nature.

It was so much fun to see the students look around us after Diane's Skype and find dots in the library and computer lab.  They had opened their eyes a little more to look for just how many things have dots, are made up of dots, or even just look like a dot.  

We then went into our MackinVIA to find dots within the eBooks.  

I created a special "Dot Day eBooks" Group within the Van Meter Elementary Mackin VIA.  I picked out five eBooks that were very difference and that I knew the students would love reading.  I also made sure they all contained lots of dots.  

I then went through the eBooks and took a few tiny little screen shots of dots within each one.  I made some of them very obvious and others a little bit more difficult.  

I created a Google Doc called Name That Dot! Which eBook in MackinVIA?, inserted the little screen shots from the eBooks, and numbered each one.  I created a title using Words With Flickr and placed it at the top.

I also created another sheet that had the title and numbers 1-10, with two bonus blanks.

I had the students get into groups of two and set off to work.  They went straight to Mackin VIA and to the "Dot Day eBooks" Group.  First they spent time reading through the eBooks. It was fun to see them get caught up in the new and interesting information that they were reading.

Once they found each picture, they wrote the title of the eBook in the blank.

The students LOVED this Dot Day activity.  They had a great time working together and a lot of fun reading new eBooks.

They also looked at things a little difference.  We all realized how many dots there actually are around us all the time.

Just one more wonderful thing that Dot Day teaches us throughout the year.....We all can make our mark on the world....

even a book and nature!