I love the features of older houses, the wooden floorboards, picture rails, ceiling roses and fireplaces. It’s these little things that show a house has been built with love and a sense of pride. The things that make a house a real home.
Our home has a fireplace in the main living room. I love it, though we don’t use it for heating. It did however initially pose a problem as it didn’t take Immy long to discover what a fun place it is to climb into. Yep, not an activity I was keen on due to the soot and dust hiding away in chimneys!
Image: Fireplace beforeI wanted to make a decorative screen that would keep a curious toddler out but not look ugly or out of place. Then I had the idea that I could make the screen fun and useful as a play feature as well. How? By making a felt board fireplace screen.
Image: Fireplace afterI purchased a large canvas from a discount store and covered it with latte covered felt, folding the edges over neatly and securing them with a staple gun. I then cut out shapes from contrasting coloured felt to be used as the play pieces.
I deliberately chose colours that matched our living room colour scheme; we have a latte coloured couch, red cushions and accessories, and a floor rug in red and shades of brown. This way the felt board feels like it is part of the decor of the room. The felt board is secured in place with 3M velcro wall fastenings.
Image: Freeform leaves and branchesFelt boards are wonderful learning tools with the direction of the learning depending upon the felt pieces you include with the board. Characters and scenery entice children to use their imagination to make up stories, whereas colours, shapes, letters or numbers reinforce mathematical or literacy learning.
Image: Improvised pondI love that the felt board can be so easily changed or added to over time. I am thinking of making a whole heap of houses and buildings, and letters and numbers, and jungle animals, and transport shapes, and…
P.S. The animal silhouettes I adapted by shrinking the colouring pages provided here at DLTK’s Growing Together.
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Christie Burnett is an early childhood teacher, presenter, writer and the editor of Childhood 101. More importantly, she is a Mum who believes wholeheartedly in the value of children learning through play, the importance of quality early education, and the togetherness of family.
PS - nice colour scheme for your place.
They sell "Fuzzy Felt" greeting cards at the uni co-op bookshop!
Well done
Louise
As a child I cracked my head open on a fireplace just like that, on the corner, the stone part on the bottom where I'm assuming your child is either standing on or sitting on to play with that felt board.
This is just my opinion but I don't think it's safe to allow a child to play around a fireplace at all despite the fact that it's not used for heating even if you're in the same room with the child bad things can happen fast. What if the child goes into another home with a fireplace that looks similar and tries to go play with it?
Maybe I'm over protective and over think, no judgment, just comments.
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