Dot-to-Dots

I love dot-to-dots. They are just so fun, challenging, and well...fun!

Now I'm not talking about those little 10 dot ones that every kid starts out doing. My favorites are the 300+ ones that have those little special dots that make you stop, and spend an hour looking for the next dot that could be anywhere on the page.

That's right, the ones that take about 20 minutes minimum to finish. Those are my kind of dot-to-dots. Now, by this point some of you are probably thinking that I'm crazy for loving extreme dot-to-dots, but here's a few reasons why I love them.

Thinking Skills:
I first really got into dot-to-dots while doing logic classes as part of my school classes. I loved doing them, because for me they were really easy, especially compared to the word problems, aggravating riddles and other such features the logic class offered. Dot-to-dots help improve thinking, eye-hand coordination [that part of dot-to-dots I admittedly need to work on, since I keep skipping numbers every so often] and for younger people, it's a good way to work on numbers.

Art Improvement:
Alright, so of all the things I might have said, this is probably the one you weren't expecting. How in the world do dot-to-dots, improve art skills?

Well, the answer is actually really simple. As you are sitting there, connecting dots, you occasionally stop to see if you can figure out what the heck the picture is supposed to be. Once you figure it out, your movements start to become more sure, since you can start to piece together what part of the picture you are doing, and thus, you are improving your art skills by making smoother, less erratic lines, small, fine details when those dots are bunched together real annoyingly, and recognition of what you're drawing, because let's face it. We've all done at least one or two pictures where we've started off just letting our hand do all the work.

Fun
Alright, don't say you didn't see this coming, because did I not say in the opening sentence that I find dot-to-dot's fun? And really, they are. No matter your age, dot-to-dots are a fun way to spend your time, so go on and hunt some down and get dotting!

What's the longest dot-to-dot you've ever done? I think for me it was a maned three-toed sloth with 1000 dots!