Dot Day

The average adult has likely not heard of Dot Day, but in an elementary school, it can sometimes be a BIG DEAL! The Dot, by Peter H Reynolds, is a favorite read aloud for many librarians and teachers.  The theme of the book is that anything could be art with the right inspiration, and anyone can be an artist. Over the past few years, the idea of Dot Day has developed, in which participants create their own dot, much like the character in the book.  They sometimes make the dot into something, or sometimes just make it full of patterns and colors.

This year, Dot Day fell on a weekend (September 15th) so the week prior, and the week following, we did Dot Day activities here in the makerspace and the library.  I read the book to the 2nd through 4th grade classes, and then we discussed how "anything might be art" translates into our makerspace work.  The kids consistently came up with "anything might be built".  We then looked at a cotton ball through as many different eyes as we could, brainstorming what else it could be.  So much creativity! When I read the book to the K-1 classes, they could choose between drawing a dot on paper with pencils, crayons, or markers; or they could create their dot on our paint program, called Tux Paint.  These kids never fail to surprise me with how creative they are!

Enjoy our Gallery!

New Year, New Look

Wow it's been a long time since I've posted here.  There is so much new stuff going on at Summit that it's time go get the blog going again! 

This year our district has redesigned my position as part of a district wide commitment to increase the emphasis on science and engineering instruction in the elementary and intermediate schools.  We are adopting a new science curriculum, and my face-to-face time with every class has increased to once a week for 60 minutes and then every other week, an additional 30 minutes.  The GT and tech trouble-shooting roles have been handed to someone else, so that we can all focus on our one area of expertise. 

During our time in the library, students at all grade levels will be working on digital citizenship and online safety, as well as learning how to navigate the library, and checking out books.  The kindergarten, first and second grade will be spending a lot of time on the foundational skills on the tablets and computers, including an extensive coding unit and video production/digital storytelling.  The third and fourth graders will be doing a lot of project driven learning, integrating the technology and coding with the design thinking process that they will design under my guidance.  I am excited to see how this goes this year, and excited to see the enthusiasm of the kids as we get into the routine!