Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons

Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons

Specifics

APA Citation: Litwin, E., & Dean, J. (2012). Pete the cat and his four groovy buttons. New York, NY: Harper.

Meets EDU 333 Blog Requirement For: Published in the last four years.

Lexile Level: AD350L

Audience: For younger readers

Summary

Pete the cat starts the day off with a shirt that has four buttons. Then, one by one, the buttons fall off and we subtract with Pete to see how many buttons he has left. He never once gets upset about his buttons falling off, he just keeps singing his button song. By the end of the day, he loses all of the buttons except one...his belly button.

Evaluation

I liked this book for a few reasons. First, it teaches young readers not to sweat the small stuff. Although Pete lost all of his buttons, he never got upset over it. The author also uses repetition from beginning to end of the book, so students can guess what will happen next, and get excited when they are right. Additionally, the book teaches simple subtraction, and shows the equation after asking how many buttons Pete has left, "3-1=2"

The illustrations are great in this book too. They are colorful and appealing to the eye. The only thing I don't agree with is that Pete never changes his facial expression, even when he's happy and singing his face looks bored. Although that is how cats are in real life, because this is a fictional story, I believe the illustrater could have allowed the cat to at least look excited.

Mini Lesson

I would only use this book for a lesson in a very young classroom, no higher than 2nd grade. We would do a subtraction activity, and we could even use buttons that I could bring in from home to count and practice our math. This is a good book to introduce subtraction.