Take Some Buttons...

Ideas for teaching the beginning processes with a simple bag of buttons...

Identifying and describing attributes - pick up a button and tell me something about what it looks like...

E.g. This button is pink, it is big, it has two holes...

Matching - pick up two buttons that have something in common with each other and tell me how they are the same...

E.g. These two buttons are both green; and those two buttons have the same shape






Sorting - can you sort these buttons by size and by shape?

E.g. I have sorted these buttons by size. If you look down each column all the buttons have the same size...

E.g. I have sorted these buttons by size and shape. If you look across all the buttons have similar colours and if you look downwards, all the buttons are the same size...

Comparing - Can you compare these two buttons?

E.g. This one (on the left is bigger) and that one (on the right) is smaller. The bigger one has two holes and the littler one has four holes...

Ordering - Can you order these buttons from biggest to smallest?

E.g.



Which one is the biggest? (The yellow one)
Which one is the smallest? (The white one)
The pink button is bigger than which buttons? (The brown and the white)
The blue one is smaller than which button? (The yellow one)

Patterning - please make a pattern using some buttons then tell me about it?

E.g.



What kind of pattern is it? (It is a repeating pattern)
What part repeats? What is the core? (pink, green, blue)
What would come next? (pink)
What is a different way of making this pattern? (clap, stomp, click, clap, stomp, click...)