Buttons have played a role in recent studies in the English Class first grade class. Button physical education (P.E.) was followed by button mathematics. In P.E. class the idea was to select a button and then read the text written on a sheet of paper. If that activity mentioned in the text is something the pupil plans to do over the winter break, s/he could place the button on the sheet of paper. Then the pupil needed to match the color of the button to a color on the chart in the corridor.
The color of the button determined what physical activity needed to be completed. For example, an orange button signified 10 squat jumps. A yellow button meant doing the duck walk the width of the gym and back. A dark blue button meant running the circumference of the gym.
During their math lesson the first graders used buttons to reinforce the relationship between addition and subtraction. It was fun for the pupils to physically move the buttons to add and take away.
The numbers seven and eight have been emphasized for the past month. At various math stations pupils practiced decomposition of these two numbers. The decomposition “machines” that the pupils crafted together with their fifth grade peer pals were very popular. Other math stations included a game using dice where the goal was to make 8’s. Another station involved using farm animals to create expressions for friends to solve. At the decomposition machine station pupils recorded the sets of decomposed numbers and determined which decomposed numbers appeared the most.