What is International Dot Day?

International Dot Day is a day to celebrate all the creative people in the world. Teachers around the world celebrate this holiday by doing creative art projects in their own classrooms, highlighting the fun and importance of being creative. 

Based on the book, The Dot, by Paul Reynolds, International Dot Day encourages young learners to be creative and use their imaginations to create works of art. Not only does this day offer a great opportunity to get creative in the art department, it also blends well with number sense activities such as counting by ones and tens.

With this worksheet, your students will use paint and cotton buds to count to 100 as they “dip” their cotton buds in paint and use them to put dots into place. A fun take on a traditional maths practice.

It’s a perfect way to blend your maths lessons into your International Dot Day classroom celebrations.

Scaffolding + Extension Tips 

In addition to individual student work time, use this counting by 10s Dip and Dot worksheet as a:

• maths rotation activity
• maths warm-up
• brain break
• fast finisher activity
• homework assignment.

Fast finishers can write numbers 1-100 on the back of the worksheet, skip counting by 5, and then 10. 

Support students who need more help can use a visual reminder of the correct order of numbers, such as a hundreds board displayed in the classroom or on their desk plate.

How To Prepare This Resource

Print each student a copy of the worksheet. Provide them with a cotton swab (or two) and a small amount of paint in a paint tray or on a paper plate. 

Remind your students of the rules when using paint in the classroom and set them on their way to counting to 100.

Before You Download

Use the Download button to choose between the PDF or Google Slides version of this resource. 

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Don’t stop there! Your Dot Day lesson plans wouldn’t be complete without these activities and teaching resources too:

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Counting to 100 - Dot Day Worksheet

Celebrate International Dot Day with this fun, hands-on way to practise counting to 100.