Ginny and I found this Dot-to-Dot book at Barnes & Noble last week, and it is awesome! It's called the "Stargazing Dot-to-Dot" book and was on the bargain bin. I'm not sure that $8 is really a bargain, but this really is a cool concept for a dot-to-dot book!
There are two pages of "How to use this book" instructions, which are rather important to read. There are many tips and tricks included.
The pages are all dark blue, so they recommend using metallic pens or gel pens. We tried our one metallic sharpie, but the tip was too wide. We also tried a white chalk pencil, but that just rubbed off. We even tried some glitter pens, but they were too dark. Finally, I remembered that I had a Gelly Roll pen in white and that worked wonders! I totally recommend this pen if you are considering getting this book.
On the picture above, you can see where we tried out some of the different pens on the tail of the bird. The gelly roll pen really stands out against this background, so it is our pen of choice. We even found them at AC Moore yesterday and bought a second white one so we didn't have to share!
The page above shows a right side page. Generally, the right side pages contain "fantasy" constellations. These don't actually exist in our night sky, but they are totally beautiful all the same.
The pictures on the left side of the pages are real constellations. For these, there are actually two dot-to-dots to complete. The first set is formed by connecting the colorful dots (which are actually all stars, so maybe it should be called a "star-to-star" book!) These colorful stars are the actual stars in the sky which make up the constellation. The tinier white stars are the second part of the dot-to-dot and make up the pictures which represent what the constellation is named for. On the picture above, you can see Andromeda, Antlia, and Apus. Antlia was actually named in the mid-eighteenth century and is an air pump.
At the back of the book, you can find solutions and information about the constellations.
Here are some of the pages that we have completed. You do have to be careful while connecting the stars as some of the stars from one constellation are rather close to the stars of others. We've made a few boo-boo connections, but everything still turns out rather nicely.
This in not a book for the novice dot-to-dotter, but it is a fun activity to work on together with your kids. The constellations just pop off the page, and it is very exciting to watch them form! Plus, you can learn a little bit about them at the same time.
This is one of the activities that Ginny and I do while we listen to audio books at night before bed. I will be posting about some of the other things we get up to during storytime in later posts. And just so you know, Ginny is 14 but still enjoys stories and arts & crafts.
