Bellmore students at Reinhard Early Childhood Center leave their ‘mark’ on Dot Day

Students at Reinhard Early Childhood Center in the Bellmore School District celebrated International Dot Day last week — encouraging each of them to make a mark on the world, and make it a better place.

The special day is a global event inspired by Peter H. Reynolds’ children’s book, “The Dot.” The book tells the story of a young girl named Vashti, who, with encouragement from her teacher, begins her artistic journey by simply making a dot on paper. This single dot opens her up to a world of creativity and self-expression, showing that even small efforts can lead to meaningful growth and change.

The day encourages creativity, courage and collaboration, urging people of all ages to make their mark and embrace their unique talents. Schools, libraries and communities around the world participate in various activities like art projects, storytelling and group collaborations to celebrate creativity and self-expression.

“The Dot” was published in 2003, and the celebration began as a grassroots movement in Iowa in 2009, when teacher Terry Shay introduced his students to Reynolds’ book and noticed its publishing date was Sept. 15. Shay and his students decided to celebrate the book’s birthday — launching a worldwide celebration that encourages all students to leave their mark on the world. Dot Day is now celebrated in schools on or around Sept. 15.

Reinhard celebrated Dot Day the week of Sept. 16, and throughout the week, students participated in Dot Day activities in their art, library and music classes. Students were encouraged to wear clothing with dots or circles on it to school on Monday.

In art classes, led by teacher Michelle Block, students participated in a school-wide project. Students created their own monochromatic dot using patterns and shapes in a variety of mediums. Each piece was essential to an overall picture, as the dots were displayed in the hallway in rainbow order. 

Using a camera tool on Block’s desk that projected to a screen in class, students followed along with her instructions. The dots created were all one color — but different types of drawing equipment, like crayons, markers and highlighters, were used to fill in their patterns.

In their library classes, librarian Julie Amoroso read “The Dot’” aloud to students along with the Novel Effect app, a soundscape that responds to voice with interactive music and sound effects. The students also viewed an interview with KidLitTV, featuring Reynolds, and drew dot inspired art with the author in the video “Ready Set Draw-ish!”

During their library classes, some students asked Amoroso to explain why they celebrate Dot Day.

“When Peter Reynolds, the author, wrote this book a long time ago, it became a smash hit,” she said. “People loved this book so much, because the real message of the book is that it is possible for every one of us to leave a mark on this world, and we can do it in such a small like — like a dot.”

Finally, in their music classes, led by teachers Kelly Brandstadter, Maria Martucci and Joanna Rocco, Reinhard’s musicians learned a Dot Day-themed song.

The second graders, who are the oldest grade of students at Reinhard, also created musical compositions with colored dots. Each dot represented a different pitch in the pentatonic scale — a musical scale featuring five notes per octave — and performed the compositions with a tubular melodic instrument, a “Boom Whacker.”

Boomwhackers are colorful, hollow, plastic percussion instruments that produce musical tones when struck against surfaces, like the hand, a leg or the floor. Each tube is tuned to a specific pitch based on its length, with shorter tubes producing higher pitches and longer tubes producing lower ones.

According to a notice sent to parents ahead of Dot Day festivities, the event was designed to explore the themes of “creativity, bravery and self-expression.”

“‘The Dot’ is a story of a perceptive and caring teacher who reaches a reluctant students who thinks she can’t draw by encouraging her to brave enough to ‘just make a mark and see where it takes you,’” the notice went on to say.