Jonathan and Thomas have enjoyed sorting through them, finding their favorites, and arguing over possession. They've strung beads on thread,
turned them into a bracelet,
and learned how to sew them onto a piece of felt.
They're having a good time.
Josiah, now...Josiah is in love with the buttons. In love. He wants to touch them, play with them, (eat them!) let them slip and slide through his fingers and fall on the floor. He sorts them, sometimes by color but usually by some method invisible to me. He pours them back and forth between cups and bowls and measuring cups.
This afternoon he spent a full hour doing this. Life went on around him, but he was utterly oblivious to it. About 30 minutes into this activity, Thomas' attempt to take some buttons was met with cries of outrage - but once Thomas was removed from the scene Josiah went right back to pouring buttons. Sixty-five minutes after starting, he put all the buttons back into their box and asked for lunch. Whatever he'd been working on was apparently finished.
Reading about educational theories and child development is interesting...watching it play out in your very own child simply fascinating.
4 comments:
I have fun memories of your love of buttons. One memory, in particular, is of you sitting down inside a big appliance box sorting buttons into muffin pans! Later, you moved on to stringing and sewing. You loved buttons for years!
I was just clicking through to comment and say, "give them some muffin tins! We used to love sorting things in muffin tins!" ... when I saw that Mom mentioned the same thing. :) I remember having a lot of fun with buttons as a kid.
Yes, muffin tins have been used as well. And Mom, I think I STILL love buttons. :)
What fun! I'm impressed with Jonathan's stitching skills. Maybe you can have him mending all of your family's clothes soon. I think it's great that your kids are having so much fun with something so simple. This is a great argument against expensive educational toys.
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