The Button Who Wanted a Coat
A story about a lost button, and then a jar of real buttons to sort afterwards.
An original story about a lost button, paired with a button-sorting activity to do afterwards. Story takes four minutes; the activity takes twenty. Suits ages 3 to 6.
The short version
- Four minutes to read, then a twenty-minute activity if you want one.
- The activity: a jar of buttons, sorted by colour, size and number of holes.
- Buttons are a choking size — this is for over-threes with an adult in the room.
- Age
- Ages 3–6
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Where
- Indoor
There was once a button with four small holes and nothing to hold on to.
It had come off a coat, a long time ago, and rolled under a chair, and stayed there.
"I would like a coat," said the button. "Any coat. I am not fussy."
A sock went past. "You cannot go on me," said the sock. "I do not have buttons. I have a heel."
"I see," said the button.
A shoe went past. "You cannot go on me," said the shoe. "I have laces. Laces are better."
"That is your opinion," said the button.
A curtain went past, in a manner of speaking. "You cannot go on me," said the curtain. "I have hooks."
The button sat under the chair and thought about hooks, and heels, and laces, and how everything seemed to have something except him.
Then a hand came under the chair.
It was a small hand, and it was slightly sticky, and it picked the button up and turned it over twice.
"This one," said a voice, "is exactly the one I need."
And the button was sewn, with quite a lot of help and a rather wobbly stitch, onto the front of a small green coat, next to three other buttons who had been there all along.
"Where have you been?" said the three buttons.
"Under a chair," said the button. "It is a long story."