I just love bright and colorful buttons and so whenever I happen to find a bag of them, I pick them up and save them. I finally found the perfect chance to share all the colorful buttons I had saved when I stumbled onto the book titled, “Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons” by Eric Titwin and James Dean…
“Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons” is such a fun book to read aloud with young children. It is basically a counting book with some simple subtracting along the way and it comes with a wonderful rhyme to chant or rap while looking at the bright and colorful illustrations…
You can go online to the Pete the Cat website and download the audio recording of the book. I burned the recording on a CD and added it to my listening center for the children to read the book on their own during center time. I will tell you that the rap sounded much cooler on the audio recording than my read-aloud version – but hey – I was trying to be cool like Pete the Cat!…
In addition to our listening center, we also set out a button collage center …
The children found glue, foam board squares, and buttons on the table to create with…
My students have become experts at using the glue bottles but to make the buttons really stick to that board, I encouraged the children to make big puddles of glue or their buttons would most likely fall off after they dry…
Once the children added their glue, then they added buttons on top of the glue and gently pressed down so the button would stick to the board. The glue will dry clear in a couple of days, so we didn’t worry about if the glue came through the button holes…
Some of the children chose to add lots of buttons on their boards and others preferred to add only a few. And some of the children chose to stack the buttons instead of just spreading them out on the board…
Once the children completed their button collages, then all that was left to do was to add their name onto the board…
Then the children put their button collages in the drying rack for the weekend. They should be dry when we get back to school next week…
For those of you who are wondering, I got some of my big, bright, and colorful buttons from the craft section at Walmart and some of them at Michaels…
In my next post, I will share with you a few other button activities we explored to extend our fun with “Pete the Cat and His Groovy Buttons…
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My children in Head Start love all of the Pete the Cat books. Some of them are “reading” them to their friends. Love your idea!
I just found “Pete the Cat… I love my white shoes”, AWESOME book and cd set. The children get up and dance throughout the story and walk around singing it. Going to have to check out the rest of the “Pete the Cat” series. Thanks for sharing.
Deborah — where did you get those buttons? I love the size and colors of them!
HI Jamie,
I got them from the craft section in Walmart and some from Michaels:) I pick them up when I find them – especially if they are big and colorful!
Great teaching lesson.
I love how this is so open ended. I also like how your students wrote their names on their artwork. It made me think of something that is going on in my son’s preschool. My son is in a 4 1/2 year old class and his teacher still writes his name on everything. I know he can write his name. It’s not perfect, but it is legible. Do you think I would be a crazy mom if I told her to stop writing his name for him? I’d love for him to get more practice with writing but maybe there… Read more »
Hi Jackie, Often times, teachers get in the habit of writing names for the kids because they get in a hurry or are focused on staying organized or in some cases, because they don’t want the children to “mess up” the artwork. In my class, we have been encouraging the children to write their own names on their projects since the 2nd week of school. Some can only write one letter and some just make their “mark” which we have to learn to recognize. But now most of the children are clearly writing some of the letters in their name.… Read more »
We LOVE Pete! Thanks for a great extended the learning idea! We checked Pete out on YouTube to get the tune for the sons and watch the author and illustrator read the book live.
Years ago I discovered something that has been so valuable we have a lot of doctors and nurses that send their children to the school I teach at..medicine comes with flip tops like in the ER,.and they are all different colors and sizes of cirçles. They save them …I wash them and we use them for sorting, buttons…and crafts….check into it..and he best they are free.
Jackie,
I totally agree with Deborah. I teach 3’s and we encourage them to write at least the first letter of their name. At 4 1/2 they should definitely be writing their name on everything. I know I pre-write names on activities to make it easier to keep track of who still needs to finish a project but usually it’s small and in the corner on the back. I would suggest asking your child’s teacher to allow your child to add their own version of their name on the front of their work.
Love this. so cute. They’re fabulous for sticking on the letter B for a letter study or even to do a canvas of your name. You’ve reminded me I really must buy more craft buttons. So fun and love the book you chose as well 😀
Hi Deborah,
Do you rotate stations or can the children do choose where they would like to work for the day? Do you make each child do the projects? How many days do you keep your stations out? It looks like you change them daily.
That’s an excellent question Nancy and one that I will do my best to answer for you. Let me share with you my general approach but keep in mind, I am flexible within that approach. If a process or station isn’t interesting to the children, I make adjustments or give myself permission to do what ever needs to be done to either change it or get rid of it as the day progresses… First of all, I do not have the children rotate stations. Instead, they choose where they want to begin and gravitate around the room until they have… Read more »
Thanks Deborah 🙂 My dream is to visit you someday! I wish I could be your assistant for the day! You have so much wisdom about young children that I am drawn to. Thank you so much for taking the time to do all you do for me. I am so very thankful for you!!! God bless you and your family!!!
Thank you too Nancy for being such a loyal reader and support to my work here:) I would love to have you be an assistant for the day too! What fun that would be:)