Whoo hoo! Lucky me! I’m hosting the roundup for this week!
Two most excellent flannels to share:
Kate at Felt Board Magic brings us 5 Candles on a Birthday Cake which looks good enough to eat!
Wendy at Flannel Board Fun has some absolutely adorable characters in her Old MacDonald set.
Check out the pinterest page to see all past flannels (and hoo boy are there a LOT of them).
Happy flanneling!
Hello Flannel Friday Friends!
Today I’ve got a flannelboard version of Emma Garcia’s Toot Toot Beep Beep. We’re doing a storytime about colors, and this is a GREAT toddler-appropriate book that talks about colors and vehicles and lets us make great noises like WHOOSH! and CHUGGA and, of course, BEEP. There are a number of excellent vocabulary words that mean “goes” – rushes, glides, trundles, hurtles, and more.
I made the vehicles very much emulating Garcia’s illustration style. Why mess with a great thing?
And here are the vehicles all tucked away for the night in the parking lot:
Please note my shout-out to the 60s-era camper van with the tie-dyed felt background on the green van.
I’m lucky enough to host the roundup today! So check back here on Saturday to see all the Flannel Friday goodness compiled in one place.
Happy flanneling!
Wow, it’s been a super long time since my last FF post. Happy to be back, even temporarily!
I assume most, if not all, of you are familiar with the excellent book Hooray for Hat by Brian Won. It’s a perfect toddler book – fun story, colorful pictures, repeated refrain the kids can join in on reading, positive ending. Due to its simplicity and repetition, it makes for a great flannel board, too! But I must give credit where due – I got the idea from Laura at Library Lalaland (who’s post I found on the Flannel Friday Pinterest)
While Laura made her animals reversible (genius!) to show their grumpy and happy faces, I did not. I just kept their faces neutral. I also added a tiny piece of velcro to the back of each of the hats to help them stick together as one so it would be easier for me to handle.
Here are the animals, wearing their hats, sans Giraffe, who was still hiding in his tree feeling sad. Note I skipped turtle as I wanted to shorten the story a smidge because I do storytime for ages 0 – 5 and I get a lot of the younger crowd:
And here’s Giraffe with all the hats. . HOORAY FOR FRIENDS!
Finally, I made a felt “Hooray for Hat” sign that I could put up the first time we say it and then point to each time. This helps with print recognition and children beginning to think of themselves as readers. I cut the letters out with my library’s die cut so I think they look super cute.
Hooray!
Today’s FF roundup will be hosted by Mollie Kay! Check out all this week’s awesome posts there!
Like most of the country, it’s been really freakin’ cold here in Colorado this week. What that means for me, the preschool outreach librarian, is that the kids I see in storytime have not been able to play outside. THIS IS A BAD THING. Kids need recess. They need to run around. Young children, especially, get super squirrelly when they have to be inside too long.
So, when I was planning my rabbit-themed storytime (centered primarily around Bob Shea’s Don’t Play With Your Food, because he sent me a copy!), I knew I had to include some movement. Now, I know, I’m a big fan of the Sleeping Bunnies song that involves some wild and crazy hopping. But we did that last month. So.
This is a very long way of saying I stole Mollie Kay’s B-U-N-N-Y song and added hopping.
We talk about each letter and its sound, and then we sound out the word. BUNNY!
(Sung to the tune of B-I-N-G-O)
There was a rabbit I once knew
And Bunny was his name-o
B-U-N-N-Y
B-U-N-N-Y
B-U-N-N-Y
And bunny was his name-o
Next, we turn over the first letter. What’s on the back? A bunny! And the word HOP.
So, we sing again, this time substituting a hop for the letter B.
Continue turning each letter and singing, until you’re left with nothing but hops. HOP! HOP! HOPHOPHOP!
This was a great movement activity that incorporated letter knowledge, letter sounds, phonological awareness, and just plain FUN. It’s also very similar to the version of B-I-N-G-O that I use!
Thanks, Mollie, for the idea!
The Roundup today will be hosted by Christine. Go check out all the awesomeness later! To see all past flannels, click the “flannel friday” icon to the right.
Happy flanneling!
One of my most popular flannels has been Baby Duck, Baby Duck. I’ve also used the traditional Little Mouse version (that actually RHYMES) to great success. So, here’s another. Because, WHY NOT?
The game goes like this: I put the hats up on the board, and we talk about their colors. We might even talk about who uses some of the hats (cowboy, builder, baseball player, etc). Then the kids close their eyes while I hide a kitty cat behind one of the hats (if he hasn’t already been hidden). We take turns choosing colors and then saying:
“Kitty cat, kitty cat, are you in the [color] hat?”
Holy over-exposure, batman! Oh well. You get the idea.
I whip the hat off the board and…*gasp!*…he’s there! Or he isn’t.
Hi, little kitty!
The kids LOVE this game. They feel great when they find him but don’t suffer any great hard feelings when they don’t. Make sure you either have enough pieces for everyone to have a turn, or are willing to re-hide the cat if he’s found so that everyone has a turn. And EXPLAIN that you’re going to do this at the beginning. EVERYONE must get a turn or there will be ugly crying. And who wants that?
I’m not the best artist, but if you want to use my hats, here’s a photocopy of them: KittyCatHat
Today’s flannel roundup (floundup?) will be hosted by Kathryn. For all past flannels, click the pinterest link to the right.
Happy flanneling!
I have to credit Melissa for this one as she was super generous in sharing her library system’s storytime training plans with me when my library was revising ours recently. This flannel is a part of that plan. So I’ve only used it as a training tool, but can certainly work in storytime! You’d probably need a few more pieces of food, though…
This is intended to be used with Raffi’s song “Going on a Picnic”, although he mentions different food. But it’s a great call-and-response song that can be easily learned by the whole group.
Put the picnic basket up on the board. Hand out flannel food pieces to the audience (only do this if you have enough for EVERY CHILD). Tell the group, we’re going on a picnic so we need to fill our picnic basket with yummy food!
Going on a picnic, leaving right away.
If it doesn’t rain we’ll stay all day.
Call: Did you bring the …. [strawberries]
Response: Yes, I brought the … [strawberries] (child brings strawberry up and puts it on the picnic basket)
etc….
Continue until all the felt foods are in the picnic basket. Next is your opportunity to really grow those early literacy skills. Talk about how two of the foods have words on them – Juice and Jam – and run your finger under the words. Notice how “juice” and “jam” both start with the letter J, that makes a “juh” sound. Ask the kids what color the strawberry is. What else on the board is red? What color is the cheese? Why does the cheese have holes? It’s SWISS cheese. Ask the kids about their favorite picnic foods.
We used this in our storytime training to demonstrate how we extend early literacy skills learning – talking about letter knowledge, background knowledge (colors, cheese words, picnic words), etc. I’m hoping to find the time to make more foods and really use this in my food storytime! What fun! I love picnics!
The roundup today will be hosted by Bridget. To see all past flannels organized for your easy access on pinterest, click the icon on the right side of the screen.
Happy Flanneling!
Several years (years? YEARS.) ago I posted about a 10 little monsters game we do in storytime. Each monster is a different color and after we’ve counted them and identified their colors, I turn the flannelboard around and take a monster away. The kids get to guess which color is missing. It’s fun! The monsters I was using, however, were looking pretty shabby. Plus, a few of them mysteriously disappeared. So, it was time for replacements.
In a fit of laziness, I decided to freehand my own monsters rather than cutting patterns out of paper and then using them to make the felt ones. After a couple of false starts, I came across the magic formula for creating an easy monster:
SHAPE + APPENDAGES + GOOGLY EYES + PAINT = MONSTER
Seriously. Cut out a shape – circle, square, cloud, blobule, etc. Add some legs, arms, horns, antennae. Glue on some eyes. Paint on a mouth and maybe some eyebrows. Instant monster – no pattern needed!
Shh….don’t tell the others, but these three are my favorites.
RAAAARRRRRRRR!
This week’s roundup will be hosted by Lisa. To see all the previous posts, visit our Pinterest page via the icon to the right.
Happy flanneling!
So there I was, casually perusing the Flannel Friday pinterest board on “animals” looking for some new ideas, and I came across this post by Miss Tara. I was immediately inspired to make my own alphabet-eating alligator. I thought ever-so-briefly about cutting a hole in my alligator puppet’s mouth (NOT advised) and then started thinking of other ways to create my own alpha-gator. I thought about HOW LONG it would take me to cut out all of those letters and that I wanted to use my gator next week. What’s the solution? MAGNET LETTERS. I have some I got from the Target dollar section (can I get three cheers for the Target dollar section?) and haven’t been able to use them yet.
My first attempt at a 3D gator was an unmitigated disaster. Two cardboard tubes covered in green felt, with one end cut to look like an alligator mouth, ended up looking like a snake with a weight problem who had been left in the dryer while wet. So I went 2D.
Here’s my gator and letters:
The gator is laminated and has magnets stuck on the back. My plan is to stick him on a cookie sheet (I’ve ordered a magnet/white board from Lakeshore) and then, as he eats each letter, stick them on his tummy. I like that the kids will still be able to see the letters, as the shapes are referenced in the poem. There are a few too many letters so they’ll have to be piled up a bit.
Now, this is still a work in progress because I’ve discovered that my letters don’t have very strong magnets. I’ve also ordered some of those via Lakeshore in hopes they’ll be better. If they aren’t, well, I’ll have to re-think this whole shebang.
Hope the Alpha-gator’s hungry!
The Library Lady is hosting our round-up today. To see all past flannels, visit the pinterest page via the icon to the right.
Happy flanneling!
I mentioned in my last Flannel Friday post (over a month ago…eeek!) that I was creating this storytime after reading Super Hair-o and the Barber of Doom. It went over pretty well with the preschoolers, so it’s time to share.
I have a bunch of assorted hats sitting in a drawer in my office (as you do) so I brought some of them along and put on a different one for each story. And there were some GREAT stories!:
hair is the source of his super powers. But when the barber cuts it all off, what will he do to regain his powers?Other books I like:
I tip my cap to you, storytimers. What are your favorite hat/hair books?
This week I read John Rocco’s Super Hair-o and the Barber of Doom and was inspired to create a hair-themed storytime. But when I wasn’t able to find as many stories as I liked, I expanded the theme to include hats. Ah. NOW we’ve got a good storytime!
I poked around (with a very long stick) the Flannel Friday pinterest page and saw Mollie’s version of “My Hat it Has Three Corners” and was immediately inspired. See, when I was very little, my family lived in Germany while my father was on an exchange scientist program through the USAF. And this song was one of the ones I learned to sing in German (and one of the few that I remember): Mein Hut, der hat drei Ecken, Drei Ecken hat mein hut. Und hätt er nicht drei Ecken, so wär es nicht mein Hut. So I HAD to make a flannelboard!
(the word corners going around the corner was unintentional. I ran out of space. But I like it!)
My hat, it has three corners
Three corners has my hat.
If my hat had not three corners,
It would not be my hat!
(Tune)
Now here’s the extra fun part: When you sing it, you do actions when you say these words: Hat (tap head), Three (hold up 3 fingers), Corners (tap elbow). Sing it once, doing all the motions and saying all the words. Then turn over the hat picture and sing again, but DO NOT say hat. Just tap your head. Sing a third time with hat and three turned over, and do not say those words but keep doing the actions. For the final time, turn over hat, three, and corners, and sing without saying those words. FUN!
Today’s roundup is hosted by Bridget. To see all the flannels, check out our pinterest page by clicking the icon to the right!
Happy flanneling!
Learning to read begins from birth. Children who have caregivers who read with them, talk to them, and LOVE them become readers. It's not just me saying it - it's SCIENCE! Have fun and share books - children who think books are fun want to become readers!
missmaryliberry.com 
