When I was growing up, my Mother had an abalone shell that she used to catch buttons. When we lost a button from a shirt or coat, we could always find a close match in Mom's button collection. I loved to play with those buttons.
When we were little, Mom would take one of the large buttons and run a string through the holes and into a loop. It would make a type of children's toy that was like a yo-yo. They were fun to play with and when we were tired of our homemade toys, the string was removed and the buttons found their way back into the collection in the shell
When I was teaching school, I had a metal tin in the closet that I used to teach lessons. Buttons of different sizes, colors, textures, and materials were rich resources for the kids to divide into piles by some classification and then they would explain what that classification was. I taught a unit on prejudice and we would exclude some bunch of buttons from our collection based on some arbitrary trait. It was easier to understand fractions if the students could see 2/3 or 1/2 with buttons. We used them when we worked with percentages. My favorite activity though was creative writing using buttons. Each student would take a button, then would write a description of the person who wore the button or a story about how the button was lost. I saw some really creative stories.
When I left teaching, I kept the button collection because I had enjoyed them so much.
After I married Betty, I was introduced to her Mother's button jar. She really had a huge jar, shown to the left. There was really a wide variety of buttons in the jar. As I sat and visited with Grace, she enjoyed telling me about some of the people that wore the buttons in her jar. I enjoyed it so much, that she gave me her jar.
My grandchildren and I have enjoyed playing with the button collections together. When Matthew was little, we used the buttons in Home Evening Lessons. They made a lesson on tithing more interesting and easier to understand.
I'm no longer a school teacher, and my grandchildren have grown, but I still have the button collections. They have been played with so much that I'm not sure which buttons started in which collection. I still enjoy looking at some of the buttons and remembering. I can't remember any more who wore which ones, but I can put them in different eras and in different styles.
Take a look at the pictures and see if you can find a button or two that you recognize. If you see one, tell us about it.
10 comments:
Buying clothes with buttons also rewards you with one extra button incase you lose one from the article of clothing, I'm starting to collect a stack of buttons, but haven't really kept the ones I've accumulated over the years. They tend to disappear.
Oh, and I was cute as a button too, with a funky hairdo! ;-)
I wondered if you would notice it. Those three pictures used to hang on a little metal family tree. The tree is gone, but we still have the photos.
NICE BUTTONS.
nice comment
I remember my mom had a big button collection too. I LOVED playing with them. I actually had forgotten all about it until I read this post. All those fun memories just came back, and now I may start a button collection so my kids can play with them. :)
They other day Adam used my button jar that Gary's mother gave us to teach Aubree his new game=POKER, he learned it from his friend. I then had few million buttons laying around. (okay, it wasn't a million. But to a mother who tries to keep the house clean all items are tripled in their mind, that's why no matter what kids do, it's filed in the messy catagory)
Carrie, thank you for validating my thoughts.
Danette, I miss the messes. I would give just about anything to be able to spend the day today with my kids or grandkids. Childhood is so short! Enjoy it while you can.
I have trouble with buttons. They seem to come off at the wrong times. Whenever they get just a little bit of stress on them they give up on me.
I just bought a jacket and before I got home with it, it was missing buttons. I think the fabric is really weak. I need to replace the button, but I think I'm going to reinforce the fabric that holds it too. The quality of our fabric goods is lousy.
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