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Overview: After
reading The Button Box, children observe buttons, describe their
properties, and classify them into groups.
Booklink: The Button Box by Margarette S. Reid, Puffin Unicorn Books, 1990. ISBN
0-14-055495-5
Science and Math Activity Link: Children
are given 8-10 different buttons. After observing and describing
them, the buttons are classified into different groups based
upon their properties; round or not-round, 4-hole or not 4-hole,
bright colors or dull colors, smooth or rough, etc. Children
also create a Venn diagram and sort the buttons by attribute.
Objective: Children will observe,
describe, and classify buttons based on their physical
properties and construct Venn diagrams.
Science Processes and Content:
Processes—observing, communicating, classifying, inferring,
defining operationally, and collecting and displaying data.
Content—physical properties of objects, form and function, and
the history of buttons.
Mathematics Processes and Content:
Processes—solving problems by comparing and compiling
collections, reasoning about numbers using diagrams to explain
answers, organizing thinking with tools to model phenomena.
Content—sort by attribute, define relations, note similarities
and differences, generate new questions.
National Science Education Standards:
Unifying Concepts and Processes, (1) Science as Inquiry, (2)
Physical Science, (5) Science and Technology, (7) History and
Nature of Science
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
Principles and Standards: Algebra, Problem Solving,
Communication, Reasoning and Proof, Representation
Materials: Assorted buttons, the book
The Button Box, paper, pencil, yarn pieces of two different
colors for Venn diagrams
Procedure:
1. Ask children to find and describe buttons on their clothing.
Have them draw each kind of button, then count and record their
numbers.
2. Read The Button Box, pointing out button properties, e.g.
metal shanks, plastic, wood, big and little. Ask children to
infer when buttons were first used and share the end page
information "Buttons, Buttons, Who Invented Buttons?"
3. Provide each child with 8 to 10 buttons. Ask them to pick
their favorite one and describe its properties (rough or smooth,
big or small, metal or plastic).
4. Ask the children to divide their group (set) of buttons into
two groups based upon a single property, e.g. smoothness (rough
and smooth), size (big or small), shape (round or not-round),
holes (2-holes or not 2-holes).
5. Encourage the children to make their own secret
classification system, dividing the buttons into 2 groups on the
basis of a single observable property. They should not tell what
the secret property is but have a neighboring child infer the
classification property. If the neighbor child infers correctly,
then it is their turn to see if the first child can infer their
secret classification property.
6. Children create a Venn diagram using two pieces of yarn (two
different colors) to form the circles. Children label each
circle by a physical property (from previous science activity).
Children sort the buttons by placing them in the correct region
of the Venn diagram as defined by the physical property
(attribute) for each circle.
7. Children play a "guess my rule" game by secretly selecting
the attributes for each circle and then asking children in the
group (3 children) to "guess the rule" by identifying the
attributes for each circle.
8. Follow up the buttons with observations and classification of
other objects by their physical properties, e.g. shoes, seeds,
leaves, rocks, or matter (solids, liquids, gases).
Related Books:
Shoes by Elizabeth Winthrop, Harper Trophy, 1986. ISBN
0-06-443171-1
Look What I Did With a Leaf! by Morteza E. Sohi, Walker
and Company, 1993. ISBN 0-8027-7440-7
What Is the World Made Of? by Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld,
Harper Collins, 1998. ISBN 0-06-445163-1 |
