This year, International Dot Day (Sept. 15-ish) is celebrating fifteen years! I thought it would be a good time to create a landing page for any “dotty brainwork” featured on the website.
The Dot, by Peter H. Reynolds, inspires wonderful “dotty artwork,” and you can find TONS of ideas online. If you’d like to make it a theme day across disciplines, here are some ideas.
| DICE PERPLEXERS (Dabbling With Dice) | Some of these dice puzzles have nothing to do with math. It’s all about the DOTS! |
| BRAILLE and BINARY CODE (Do You Speak Binary?) | The lessons include an interactive dot pattern maker and a fascinating video about Louis Braille, who was just a teenager when he invented the Braille system. |
| NINE DOT PUZZLE (Thinking Outside the Box) | Connect the puzzle with the phrase “thinking outside the box.” This post includes the history and lessons from this puzzle. |
| DOTTY SIX / TOTALITY math games (You’ve Got Game! Figure Out the Rules!) | Show the games and have students figure out the rules. One is with dice, the other involves connecting dots. |
| DICEY MATH puzzles and games (NRich Maths website) | I think using dotty dice on International Dot Day is the perfect way to infuse critical thinking and sneak in some math! |
| CONNECT THE DOT Research (Zooming from topic to topic) | Launch a fun research project that can be ongoing and a great side project for students to work on as they have time! Use the book ZOOM to introduce it. |
| DOTTY LOGIC PUZZLES (Logic Links) | If you have Logic Links, they are perfect for DOT DAY. You can even have your students create their own puzzles using colored dot stickers. I included one like this in my Mini-Olympiad Academic Contest |