International Dot Day — celebrating creativity

Peter H. Reynolds has written some fabulous picture books about being creative. Two of them are The Dot and Ish. In each of them, a child learns to celebrate their own special way of making art, even if it isn’t quite as spectacular as the art some people can do. Each of us is creative, each of us has the ability to “make our mark” in the world. In fact, that’s one of the important lines in The Dot — “Just make a mark and see where it takes you.”

Nine years ago, a teacher called Terry Shay decided to get his whole class involved in drawing and painting dots, just like in the book. Then he invited other classrooms to join him, and more and more people got excited about this way to make art and celebrate. It has now become an international celebration of people’s creativity — involving kids, adults, classrooms, individuals all over the world.

Every year, around September 15th (the date that The Dot was first published 10 years ago) people sign up to participate in International Dot Day. This year, there are over a million participants in 64 different countries around the world! You can join in, too. Just go to the Dot Club’s website for information.

There are lots of ways to make a dot. It doesn’t just have to be one dot of a solid color (though it can be). It can be anything your imagination wants it to be! There are lots of examples at the Dot Gallery on the website, and there’s even a website where kids’ authors and illustrators have posted dots, called Celebri-Dots.

Hope you’ll get inspired and join the fun! I did! (Click on “read more” to see my dot.)