Over the years I have amassed quite a collection of buttons from various places and they now all reside in this old lunchbox. I had though it would be a fun activity for Boris to sort the buttons into different sections of an egg box or different pots and jars. He is a bit young for this but he did very much enjoy looking at them, picking them up, throwing the about and taking them in and out of the box. Hopefully when he is older we can use these buttons for counting games, colour and size sorting and crafts. Until then however I am happy to let him enjoy the feel of them in his little fingers. It improves his fine motor skills and brings him pleasure through a sensory experience.
Getting the buttons out took no time at all, clearing up took a little longer because they were spread quite some distance across the carpet! We had to end the activity when he got a bit over enthusiastic about throwing them and I had visions of fishing out buttons from between the sofa cushions for weeks to come.
He enjoyed this activity though with younger toddlers it does need to be closely supervised to ensure that no buttons are put into the mouth (or other orifaces!) I know in the not too distant future he will be able to play with them independantly without having to worry about choking of ingestion.
