12 | September | 2017 | 20somethingkids and 1kookyteacher

Remember when we read The Line and did drawing starts with Mrs. Berger? It was a great experience for Rm. 111 kiddo and an opportunity to use our creativity and grit. Well…we went back last Friday and did it again! Not the drawing start part, but the creativity and grit part. 🙂

During our second visit to Mrs. Berger’s room, she shared Ten Black Dots by Donald Crews with us. Many of us had heard it before, but maybe as a math book instead of an invitation to think in a new and different way.

We read and discussed the book and looked at the many ways Crews imagined what those ten dots could become. And then, just as she had done with drawing starts, Mrs. Berger asked me to give it a try (and somehow even though she does this every year, I was totally surprised. LOL). So…I stared at the big white paper, trying to see something besides big black circles

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To be honest, I could have made the caterpillar I have done most every other time (boo–I know that’s not very creative!), but I figured I should try a little harder. So I kept thinking and started moving those dots around on the blank page.

After the dots, I added some details and then stood back to see if they could figure out what my dots had become.

So…my ten black dots became:

A fancy lady’s hair!

The funniest part to me is that most kiddos thought it was a self-portait! Ha!

So after my beautiful example, kiddos were give a pile of dots (ours were red and yellow) from which they had to count out ten and then create something marvelous. Kiddos went to their personal “offices” and got busy. They were given about 20 minutes to work, and friends were challenged and then encouraged to work the whole time, adding more details if they thought they were finished before time was up. The sound of quietly working kiddos and the creations that emerged as fabulous!