Imagine a Dot...

I know school is done for the summer (at lease here in the states) but I wanted to post a couple of fun one day activities I did with my young mini's the last days of school. I say last days because the specialist in my school are on digital days. This means we see all 25 sections of classes one a week. So we have 5 'last days' of school.

So moving on to the image you see in this post… These are first grade student all laying down and meditating after reading the book 'The Dot' by Peter Reynolds. I'm sure this is not a new book to many of you but it is one I use often for one day projects. Because this was the last day, in fact the last hour of the year these kids were bouncing off the walls. I read them the book and asked them to lay down. I walked them through a meditation, asking them to relax their bodies, starting from their toes up to their head. I asked them to imagine the dot, it's so far away… Look, it's getting closer. You love the color of the dot, you touch it (all the first grade hands go into the air to 'touch their dots'), you've never felt or seen anything like this before. The dot smells wonderful (once again, the kids sniff the air). You pick it up, it turns into water and drips into many different dot around your feet. The little dots make a circle and you are now in the dot. Well, you get the picture. I made this activity last at least 10 minutes before I handed their work back for the year, had them help a bit with clean up, and talked about the great adventures they will have over the summer.