The Button Box

The cover of the book "The Button Box" by Margarette Reid

The Button Box by Margarette Reid is a great book to use if you're working on sorting by attributes.  I always use it with real buttons, because I think it really allows the children to experience the wonder of classifying by shape, texture, size, color, sparkles, button holes, etc.  I think sometimes we fall into the rut of only sorting by color.  When I still had my sight, color sorting was the first thing I thought of to do with the kids.  The problem was that if I asked the kids what sorting was, they would reply "That's when you put the yellow ones with the yellow ones."  Although that answer is correct, I think it's really important for them to realize that you can sort or classify by many different factors, not just color.

This year, my students really got into the activity.  They were so happy to find buttons that were the same that they put them in my hands and said "Feel my buttons!  I have stars!", "I have smooth buttons", or "I have wood buttons!"  I was so proud of them, especially because their language has improved so much since August - almost 90% of my students did not speak English when they entered my class.

Here is a book that I used in kindergarten for guided reading.  The students can shadow-write the sentence for most of the book, and then at the end they write their own sentence and draw their own pictures of buttons.  I hope your kids enjoy this.
I See Buttons Writing