When reading Dot Day one of the first thoughts that come to my head is helping a past student believe in their math ability. Last semester I was working in a school in Flint and there was one boy who was always super hard on himself if he could not do his math perfectly. He was having a very hard time with the concept of coins and adding 25 cents 10 cents 1 cent and so on. He was really having a hard time grasping using the groups of 25 cents as a quarter when you added 3 quarters for example. He was getting upset and saying that he could not do it. I took him out in the hallway and we worked one on one. I at first of course had to calm him down.
Once calmed down we went over adding money again with manipulates in an one on one situation. When in the classroom with all of the chaos with the children being excited and loud about how fun it is too add money and how great they are, he just felt over whelmed and down on himself for not understanding. As soon as we got in the hallway and worked together he figured it out he just had to get over the voice in his head that said he could not do it. To me that is what the "dot" is all about. Getting over your own personal I can'ts and turning them into I can's
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