After putting together the St. Patrick’s Day sensory bin, which was then re-purposedĀ for an Easter sensory bin, I realized that the buttons that we bought had a lot of potential. How so? Well, I got the idea after Squeaker kept trying to go after the package.
She was fascinated with the shape and size, so I thought why not capitalize on her curiosity and use button play for fine motor skills development.
After gathering a few materials around the house, we had a simple DIY button game that only took me a few minutes to put together but kept her entertained for a good 15 to 20 minutes at a time. (and if you have a young child, you know that’s quite a bit of time)
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Make Your Own DIY Button Game for Babies
Materials needed:
Empty (and washed) Puffs container (or something similar, make sure it has a lid.)
Container to hold buttons (optional)
Ā 
In the top of the lid, cut a hole large enough to fit the widest button through. In this package, it’s a hexagon shaped button. This makes it wide enough to accommodate all of the other buttons in the package. I probably should have secured the lid somehow, but I also wanted to be able to take the lid off to pour the buttons back out of the container.
As you can see, Squeaker is trying to turn one of the buttons so it will fit properly. A few of the shapes were frustrating for her at first, but she figured it out soon enough.
Empty!
After she was finished transferring all of the buttons, I opened the container and dumped them back into the other one so she could start again. On a few occasions, she wanted to shake the container first and that was perfectly fine as well. While she was putting buttons into the container, I talked to her about the colors and the shapes.
Overall, Squeaker seemed to enjoy this activity and it did keep her occupied pretty nicely. On a plus side, we were also able to work a bit on her fine motor skills without her realizing that she was playing a game.
For kids, especially younger ones, I think keeping learning fun and engaging is key. Capitalizing on something as simple as buttons and by watching what she was interested in, I was able to bring her this super easy DIY button play for fine motor skills. We’re starting to, slowly, move into a more academic based Tot School for Squeaker.
She’s showing a lot of interest in counting, colors, and the alphabet. This, in turn, tells me that we just might be ready to start some of those skills in a more “formal” setting. I use this term loosely because I think it’s unrealistic to expect a child under the age of 6 to sit still for extended periods of time and do worksheets and busy work.
However, by going at her pace, I think we’ll be okay.
As we transition, I’ll continue to share what we’re doing in School with Squeaker. Eventually, we’ll get into themes and start offering the printable sheets that we use to guide our “lessons.” I hope that you’ll be here with us for our continued journey into homeschooling!
Kori
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That’s awesome! And I feel better knowing that I’m not the only one who wants to do “School” stuff with my daughter to help her learn more. I’m definitely following you to get ideas!
I definitely think it’s never too early to start- especially if they’re showing an interest in it, you know? But at the same time, I need to be realistic and not do too much with her, lol. Don’t want to burn her out too quickly!
This is a great idea. It’s so funny that the things the children like to play with most are the DIYs and not the super expensive toys. My 2 year old loves these sorts of activities, her favourite at the minute is posting pom poms through a kitchen roll tube stuck to the wall, again talking about colours and size differences as we go. They are such fun at this early stage, like sponges just taking in so much and learning so fast. I am going to try and find some giant buttons now……
This is great! I have a huge stash of buttons for sewing and my four year old is constantly going in there and getting them to play with. She loves buttons. When she was younger I used to bury them in play dough and let her dig around in the play dough to find them, and we would count how many she found. I also plan to home school and we just recently started doing some more structured curriculum. I think activities like this really set the stage for a great start!
We did something similar to this when my kids were little. I loved every new stage they entered. There is something magical about watching your kids learn and grow. Thanks for sharing this. Pinned! Thanks for linking to Tips & Tricks! Can’t wait to see what you link up next! š
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