Felt boards and felt pieces are fabulous early literacy tools as they encourage children to engage with story telling – whether it be with familiar stories, such as fairy tales, or stories completely of their own making. We have a combination of commercially produced and homemade felt board pieces and often I will set up an invitation to play on our large felt board for Immy to discover…
You can imagine the adventures that Goldilocks, the bears, pigs and that Big Bad Wolf get up to…especially when it is time for ballet class!
I made our large felt/flannel board by covering a large painting canvas which I picked up cheaply from a discount store (see here). You can make your own felt/flannel board pieces or search online for sets to buy – I love finding sets on Etsy. Start with pieces that represent a story or theme your child really enjoys to capture their interest and imagination.
Do you have a felt board? What stories or activities do your children enjoy when using the felt board?
Christie Burnett is a teacher, presenter, writer and the mother of two. She created Childhood 101 as a place for teachers and parents to access engaging, high quality learning ideas.
Wow another fantastic idea, I have bought a few felt board sets, its frustrating finding the board sets but not being able to get extra bits on their own. Thanks for the link, and the ideas, have never thought to mix them up and see what stories are created.
My daughter enjoys playing with her felt board sets, her favourite is Goldilocks and the Three Bears, telling the story as she places the felt pieces on.
I have managed to buy several for around $8 at Cheap as Chips which happen to be the same good quality brand sold at places like Kmart and Windmill Education.
We also borrow various themes from our local Toy Library.
I bought a pirate themed felt board set for Junior (now 5) several years ago and we have also made some of our own felt pieces as well. Rascal (2.5yrs) now loves it as well and I have a couple of larger plain felt pieces (white square background with green hill shapes and blue ocean shapes) which we use when we are travelling. The whole lot folds up nice and small, stores easily in a a snap lock bag and if very light. It has made several trips to Broome, Rottnest, Albany etc.
We used to take our felt pieces travelling too. You don’t need to take the board, just the pieces in a ziplock bag or pencil case. They are great for playing with on the fold down tables on planes, and on airport floors. (They also present no hassles going through security…). Our Thomas the Tank engine felts went all the way to Europe (much simpler than lugging little wooden trains!)
We love felt pieces at our place too, and keep the various themes in snap lock bags. I do love your big canvas felt board idea though, as the commercial boards get scruffy quite quickly. I’m always amazed when the goldilocks set and the underwater set get mixed up – and suddenly the bears are going scuba diving!
We love our felt board sets here, we have a few and also enjoy mixing up the stories. I love your idea of making a large, felt covered canvas though, it would make it easier to create bigger stories. I was sad not to have been able to catch up with you in Melbourne this weekend, hopefully next year at the next con?
We have a few felt boards and with it comes lots of pieces, from a ballet store to a pirate ship.
We store them in a big cardboard gift box. Easy to pull off the shelf. When they make a scene we usually have to display it for a few days before it goes away.
The kids never get board of their felt boards, endless imagination
Fuzzy Felt was one of my favourite toys as a kid, and I spent hours making pictures and telling stories with it, so it’s been disappointing to see that the munchkin has not really taken to it (perhaps pirates would have captured his imagination more). I bought the magnetic “vintage” set and set it up on a magnet board in his creative space. He hasn’t touched it since day 1, but he did enjoy cutting up pieces of magnet paper to decorate it.
Love the idea of mixing up sets. I had avoided those more commercial sets because they looked too restrictive compared to my memories of felt boards.
Felt boards=wonderful kindergarten memories for me. An engaging way to spend time exploring nursery rhymes and fairy tales. Thanks for reminding me of this play idea.
What a fun idea. I think I should make a felt board for our play area that we are creating!
For Aussies – I spotted fairytale and occupation/scene felt boards at Red Dot last week for $5 each! I bought a heap for the coming birthday party season!
May I ask where you got your 3 Little Pigs set? My two-year-old is obsessed with The 3 Little Pigs. Thanks!
My 22-month-old loves felt boards too. I made an ocean-themed set that he plays with on a pretty regular basis. He mostly just manipulates the pieces and enjoys laying them out – there’s no real story-making going on yet. But I think that may change with the new one we just created today, based on one of his favorite books, Little Pea. Here’s a link to a photo and description: http://100pitchersofhoney.blogspot.com/2011/08/artistic-endeavors.html
You can also glue felt to the back of cardboard cutouts. I love using felt pictures in my preschool music groups when it is a story that builds upon itself.
Any good templates or tutorials for making your own? I live in Darwin and am wondering some good places to look for felt stories. I am keeping a list now from etsy for myself and present ideas!!
Cheers from Darwin Australia
I’m a little late to the party here, but I wanted to share this: several blogging librarians have organized “Flannel Friday” – each Friday many of us post a different felt board story idea and one of the bloggers organizes them into a “roundup.” All of the past ideas can be found on our pinterest page: www. pinterest.com/flannelfriday. Enjoy!