It's That Time Again!

We had a great first day of co-op! Kylen is taking PE, my class, and Jonathan Parks Adventures in which the kids listen to an episode while doing related activities. As a wonderful bonus, my sister-in-law joined, so now Kylen gets to see some of his cousins every Monday. Woo-hoo! (Hey, I enjoy seeing 'em, too! I have always felt blessed to really like my sister-in-law and brother-in-law.)

Today's theme was "Button Games." I found all of these in a book called, "Button, Button, Who's got the Button: 101 Button Games," which I purchased along with a box of buttons as a set. You can also find bags of mixed buttons at craft stores and add any laying around the house. I even got some from my grandma!

Whose Button
I sent my assistant out of the room and asked the children to pick their favorite button. (They were also told they would get to keep it.) After placing their buttons in the middle of the table, my assistant came in and had to guess who picked each one. I thought it was interesting that her own two children were a couple of the last ones she figured out! Kids can be so unpredictable!

Button Personality
Since this was our first class, I used this game to get to know the students a little bit. We went around the table and each child told us why he picked that button.

Memory Button
I walked around the room showing each of the children a bunch of buttons on a tray. There was a variety of colors, shapes, etc. Then I covered it up and asked several questions to test their memory: How many buttons were there? What colors were they? What shapes do you remember seeing?

Biggest Best and Most Beautiful
I described buttons in the box until a student guessed correctly which one I was talking about. Each button was made to sound wonderful: "This button is the best one in the box because it is very large and has the most lovely shade of blue . . . " I also went around the table and allowed each child to try being the describer, although a couple of the older ones declined.

Button, Button, Who’s got the Button?
The kids stood in a circle facing inward. All of them held one hand open behind their backs, open hand and palm up. My assistant walked around placing or pretending to place a button in each hand. The idea is to trick them as to whether they have a button, since the button is so light and small. Unfortunately, this game didn't work. The children would need to not move their hands at all so as not to feel if a button is there. I think they were too young to do that, and they guessed correctly nearly every time.

Other than the last game and some noise problems, class went well! I'm already looking forward to next week!