How to Use Fun Dot-to-Dot Printables

Connect the Dots With These Printable Worksheets

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.

Very Easy: Up to 10 dots

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.

Easy: 11 to 20 dots

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

Medium: 21 to 50 Dots

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)

Very Hard: 51-200

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

Extreme: 200+ Dots

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)

More Connect-the-Dots Websites

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.

Multiple Exercise 1: Count by 2's

Multiple Exercise 2: Count by 5's

Alphabet Printable: Lowercase Letters

Trace the Dotted Lines Printables

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.

1. Teach Sewing

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.

2. Make a Greeting Card

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.

3. Wikki Stix Designs

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.

4. Light Picture

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.

5. Star Constellations

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!

Do You Enjoy These Puzzles?

wakin' bacon on May 02, 2018:

the dot to dot on this is for like 5-7 year olds not12- 15 year olds.

Līva on November 06, 2017:

no god

andrea on May 09, 2016:

its ok

PinkstonePictures from Miami Beach, FL on March 18, 2013:

I used to love dot-to-dot when I was kid. Thanks for the memory

Sana139 on March 14, 2013:

cute lens!!

Gigglesmith on March 09, 2013:

Connect the dots are always fun

Carpenter76 on February 22, 2013:

The kids in my class love those!

Rodaussie on February 11, 2013:

love dot to dot since i'm a kid... Blessed

MVSquid on January 25, 2013:

Great idea. I know the kids will love these.

miller83 on January 20, 2013:

Love the lens. My kid will loves these. Thank you.

seosmm on December 24, 2012:

Very interesting and nice lens!

beaworkathomemom on December 19, 2012:

Kids will surely love this. A great pastime activity.

forextrading2000 on December 16, 2012:

I love this lens! You have given us a great resource. Thanks...

maryseena on December 02, 2012:

I wish I had come across this lens much earlier when I was teaching kindergarten.

It is a good collection.

anonymous on November 14, 2012:

ok for a 8 year old

mortgage2 on November 08, 2012:

Great dot to dot puzzles that are super to color afterwards, the kids love them and it keeps them occupied nicely on rainy afternoons, thanks!

longbitbeard on November 04, 2012:

I love these, kids positively eat them up!

DeboraR on October 31, 2012:

OMG! I've not done these in years! I love dot 2 dot! Might have to scroll back up and place an order for a whole book of them!

anonymous on October 29, 2012:

Great source :)

anonymous on October 18, 2012:

the puzzles are great ! It wood be interesting to to have some puzzles with multiplications. Example : 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, ...

It makes it very interesting for children to exercise without knowing doing math.

krislu lm on October 15, 2012:

As a child, I LOVED dot to dot puzzles! This is great! Thanks for sharing!

IssacAlouf on September 16, 2012:

Yeah, I'm old... yeah I like connect the dots... what's the big deal? :)

KristoferPurple on September 14, 2012:

Just wanted to drop in and say this is an awesome lens! :)

JesusDensford on September 07, 2012:

Connect the dots are still awesome... I don't care what anyone says!

KarlHarer on August 30, 2012:

My kids will love these... thanks!

dave-sutton on August 15, 2012:

I have enough puzzles with my wife. Her name is Dot !

funbee lm on August 02, 2012:

You have a great set of dot to dot printables here!

steph-naylor on July 23, 2012:

Super Lens! Thankyou!

anonymous on July 10, 2012:

I have a student who is crazy about dot to dot. Thank you.

lucia1990 on July 05, 2012:

Kids love your dot to dot lens....

Fay Favored from USA on June 20, 2012:

They are so much fun. The kids always liked doing them (so do I for that matter).

IQplusone on June 08, 2012:

These printables are gorgeous. My kids love them. Thanks for sharing.

tomazg on May 31, 2012:

Dod to dot printables are great for kids. They learn a lot from it.

Ruthi on May 28, 2012:

I loved doing dot to dot pages as a kid!

anonymous on May 24, 2012:

These were fun

wcjohnston on May 20, 2012:

These will be great for the kids

jazziyarbrough on May 19, 2012:

I think these are a great learning tool for children, thanks for sharing

anonymous on May 18, 2012:

Yeah!

I find them fun even with the kids! :)

Expat Mamasita from Thailand on May 16, 2012:

Thanks for sharing!

mistyblue75605 lm on April 09, 2012:

This is awesome for the kids! Thanks for sharing! :)p

kaposzta on April 07, 2012:

I loved these when I was a child... Great lens!

anonymous on March 31, 2012:

I used to love doing Dot to Dot and they sure are a great way to work the brain for problem solving, number reinforcement and such satisfaction when the puzzle is solved and you get to color it too!

mumsgather on March 01, 2012:

Dot to Dots are a great way for kids to learn their numbers and alphabets. :)

Pastor Cher from United States on February 22, 2012:

Love to do these puzzles and so do the kids in children's church. Great resource.

Pangionedevelopers on February 18, 2012:

great info source

jimmyworldstar on February 04, 2012:

Dot to dot puzzles can be fun, if not difficult at times when you don't know which ones to connect.

damoiselle on January 27, 2012:

Dang, you're thorough! Very nice.

jadehorseshoe on December 20, 2011:

VERY useful lens.

baby-strollers on December 12, 2011:

Very cool dot puzzles, my little guys will like this.

Evelyn Saenz from Royalton on December 10, 2011:

I was searching for a dot to dot camel and found your page. Thanks for sharing :)

h2ofs1 on December 02, 2011:

Dot to dot are still even now great fun! Magic lens many thanks!

Godsgraciousgift on December 01, 2011:

We need a new printer. Once I get the new one I hope I recall to get back to this lens. There are some cute dot to dot puzzles I'd like to share with my grandchildren.

JoshK47 on November 26, 2011:

I used to love connect the dots! Haven't done one in ages, though. Blessed by a SquidAngel!

ukimpro on November 15, 2011:

awesome, i used to love dot to dots!

Jeanette (author) from Australia on November 07, 2011:

@anonymous: Thanks. I appreciate that!

anonymous on November 06, 2011:

The link to the alphabet one doesn't work, the url comes up "http://www.squidoo.com/alphabet-coloringpages&quot... you might want to fix the extra "http//" :)

moonlitta on October 28, 2011:

Dot-to-dot develops math skills (helps remember and learn numbers), alphabet and so much more! Angel blessed:)

dogface lm on October 21, 2011:

When I was a kid I loved dot to dot puzzles. :)

AngelDey on July 29, 2011:

I do enjoy dot to dot and so does my son. Your lens has so many different ones. Thanks for sharing.

TeacherRenee on July 11, 2011:

Great lens! Such a good activity for kids!

YourFirstTime on July 02, 2011:

Loved dot dot as a kid. Mae me feel like I could really draw.

YourFirstTime on July 02, 2011:

Loved dot dot as a kid. Mae me feel like I could really draw.

anonymous on April 20, 2011:

I used to love dot to dot as a kid, might even still do them, I love reading children's books!

What a great Lens, well done!

Philippians468 on April 14, 2011:

yes i definitely do! brings back good old memories of tracing the dots with my fingers and imagining what the shape will eventually be! great lens! cheers