Toby was getting dressed for his school. It was Red day in his school and he was planning to wear his most favorite red shirt. As he was putting the shirt on , he heard a pop sound and Phew! his button went flying down to the floor. He was sad.

“We’ll find you another shirt, ” his mother said.

“But I want to wear this one,” said Toby.

“Oh, gosh,” his mother said.

“I can use a pin to close it.”

“That will not look neat,” his mother said. “Buttons are used to keep the clothes fastened together. We’ll fix your shirt by sewing another button.”

Toby’s mother went inside and got her sewing box that had threads, needles and buttons. Whoa! there were lots of wonderful looking buttons. There were black, red, green, purple, yellow buttons. Then there were buttons round like marbles and some square ones also.

While they were searching for the right button to put on Toby’s shirt, he asked his mother. “What did people do when they did not have buttons and who invented them?”

“Buttons may have been invented almost four thousand years ago,” his mother said, “In ancient China people used buttons made out of gold and silver. Sometimes they only put a button on the cap, and the clothes were held together by strings and buckles. So initially were used as ornaments. But when people did realize that they could use buttons to hold clothes together, they started making buttons out of wood, seashells, iron or ivory. But today all the buttons are made out of plastic.”

“Wow! How come I did not know that?” Toby said.

“I think they are so tiny that we almost forget about them until we lose one,” his mother smiled.

 Did you know that a long time ago people used to button up their shoes :) These days we use Zippers that are similar to Buttons  but nothing compares to our good old Buttons!!