How to Use Fun Dot-to-Dot Printables

I've collected a variety of dot-to-dot printables sorted by difficulty levels so you can enjoy a fun activity with your kids or students. The number of dots on each sheet is included (ex. (10)) to help you decide which one is best suited for the age group.

Why Did I Choose These Printables?

These sheets are very educational, as they help reinforce counting and number recognition. Once your student is fluent in counting, you can make the activity more challenging by getting him to start at the biggest number and work backwards—learning to count down.

• The printables on this page range from very easy to very hard. The difficult dot-to-dot worksheets can be fun for adults.
• I also curated some skip counting printables (e.g. count by 2's: 2-4-6-8-10 etc.). These would make an ideal introduction to teaching your children their times tables.
• Some will also teach alphabetical order, either with uppercase letters (ABCD) or lowercase letters (abcd).

Children might also want to color in their final picture, which can provide twice the enjoyment and take up more activity time. If you're looking for some different ways to use these designs, I suggest a few creative ideas below.

These activity sheets are great for young children who are just learning their numbers by beginning counting and single digit number recognition.

1. Nature-Inspired Dots: You'll find many different puzzles here including the following: caterpillar (5), dreaming cat (5), dog bone (5), swimming fish (5), leaf (10), butterfly (10), apple (10), and ant with pencil (10).
2. Clown Dot-to-Dot (6)
3. Unicorn Dot-to-Dot Printable (7)
4. Everyday Dots: These puzzles are easy to do and contain 10 dots. You'll find sheets for a candle, barn, castle, owl, snowman, dog in a chair, boy in headdress, teepee, man wearing a hat, flower, gingerbread man ornament, gift in a stocking, laughing elf, and a gift box.

1. Lighthouse Tower (11)
2. Baseball Cap (12)
3. Cheerful Lion (14)
4. Curious Bear (14)
5. Schoolhouse Manor (16)

1. Butterfly (44, pictured above)
2. Snowman (31)
3. Firetruck (33)
4. Ghost (35)
5. Pig (47)
6. Alligator/Crocodile (30)
7. Fairy Tail Castle (35)

1. Haunted House (85)
2. Stars (112)
3. Princess (102)
4. Abraham Riding a Camel (105)
5. Camel (109)
6. Penguins (124, pictured above)

1. Monkeying Around: Prepare to be challenged! You'll find some really big puzzles here (including one with 822 dots!) and some with a slightly different format than what you're used to. Part of the excitement of these puzzles is not being able to predict what the final picture will be, even as you're drawing.
2. Snowflake (229)
3. Colosseum (252)
4. Moose (270)

1. Hello Kids

This website has lots of puzzles that are organized by theme. You get to choose from different celebrations (Christmas, Valentine's Day, Thanksgiving, Easter, etc.), animals, characters, carnivals, and more.

2. Print Activities

These activity sheets are also organized by theme. The different themes include seasons, special occasions, animals, medieval, outer space, pirates, sports, and more.

These designs don't have any numbers or letters to show the order. Instead, you can tell just from looking at the picture where you are supposed to connect the dots. This type of puzzle is great for preschoolers to help them develop their fine motor control and their ability to hold a pencil.

• Several tracing puzzles for toddlers, include a playful puppy, a penguin, a vase of flowers, a giraffe, a skeleton, a dinosaur, seals, dolphins, and more.
• Five suitable printables: beaver, seahorse, snail, owl, dolphin.
• Fun printables: bird, ducks, elephant, flower, Hello kitty on a dolphin and a hippo.

When a child is learning how to sew with a sewing machine, have them sew a piece of paper with one of these puzzles printed on it. It's a fun way to practice straight lines and learning to start and stop at the right place. Your child will also learn how to make sure the needle is down in the right spot, lift the presser foot, and pivot the paper so that it is facing in the right direction to get to the next point. It is best not to use too complicated a pattern to begin with.

• Choose a design where the dots are not crowded too close together and are a bit spread out.
• Use brightly colored threads.
• Set the sewing machine to have an average stitch length—if you make the stitches too long, you'll lose the detail and it will make it harder to stop close to each dot. If you make the stitch length too short, you might end up breaking the paper.

Here's how you can use a connect-the-dot printable to make a greeting card:

1. Reduce the size of the picture and print it out on thicker paper or card. This can be white or colored paper.
2. Use a sewing machine to stitch the design from number to number using a thread with a color which contrasts well with the card you're stitching on.
3. When you've finished stitching the picture, mount it on another piece of card folded in half to make a greeting card.

Again, I recommend using a relatively simple pattern with not too many dots. Make sure to set your stitch size to average. If you are using a very simple design, you could use some of the fancy stitches available on your sewing machine (e.g. a zigzag) to join each point.

Wikki Stix is knitting yarn infused with a non-toxic wax so they hold together and can stick to most smooth surfaces. If you make a mistake, you simply peel them up and restick them in the right place. You can use scissors to cut each stick to the desired size.

Choose an appropriate design. This craft will work best with patterns that have quite a few dots and no other lines printed on the design. You need to be able to "see" the picture from just the dots.

• Print the design on the card.
• Use a pin to make a hole at every dot.
• Stick your page to the window so that the light shines through the pin holes.

Down through the ages, humans have been fascinated with joining points together with lines. Just look at the constellation diagrams, where stars are joined together to make pictures in the night sky. And with those, you need a good amount of imagination to see how you can get the picture out of the star-points!