Tag Archives: flannelboards

Flannel Friday: Hooray For Hat!

4 Nov

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:

hooray-for-hat

And here’s Giraffe with all the hats. . HOORAY FOR FRIENDS!

hooray-for-hat3

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-for-hat2

Hooray!

Today’s FF roundup will be hosted by Mollie Kay! Check out all this week’s awesome posts there!

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Flannel Friday: Monsters the Easy-Peasy Mac-N-Cheesy Way

11 Oct

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

IMG_5597

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.

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!

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Flannel(ish) Friday: Alpha-gator

30 Aug

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:

gator

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!

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Hats and Hair Storytime

8 Aug

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!:

  • Rocco, Jon. Super Hair-o and the Barber of Doom. Jon thinks his wild, curly super hair-ohair is the source of his super powers. But when the barber cuts it all off, what will he do to regain his powers?
  • Klassen, Jon. I Want My Hat Back. Bear goes looking for his hat. Nobody has seen it. Or HAVE they?
  • Game: “Who Wears This Hat?”: I printed out some pictures of various hats (cowboy, hard hat, astronaut helmet, firefighter hat, etc.) and covered with clear contact paper. I held them up and the kids helped me figure out who wears each hat, and what job they do.
  • Agee, Jon. Milo’s Hat Trick. Milo the magician HAS to improve his show with a hat trick. He goes looking for a rabbit, but instead finds a bear with an impressive skill.
  • Flannelboard: “My Hat It Has Three Corners“
  • Lita Judge. The Red Hat. Sort of a wordless picture book – the only words are sounds (but OH WHAT AWESOME SOUNDS!). A bear cub pulls a child’s red hat off a clothesline and begins a game of chase with his animal friends, resulting in the hat unraveling.

Other books I like:

I tip my cap to you, storytimers. What are your favorite hat/hair books?

 

 

 

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Flannel Friday: 5 Little Snowmen

18 Jan

Long time no post, y’all! Sorry for that. I hope to be fully back WITH A VENGEANCE soon. Okay, maybe not with a or any vengeance.

I didn’t have time to make these pieces out of felt, so I made them in MS Word using the shape drawing feature. The sun is clipart.

snowmen

The rhyme I used with them goes like this (we also did the actions):

5 little snowmen standing in a row (5 fingers)

each with a hat and a bright red bow (hand on head, two hands pull bow)

Out came the sun and it shone all day (hands over head in circle shape)

And 1 little snowman melted away (wiggle fingers down to ground)

4 little snowmen… etc.

As each snowman melted, I replaced them with a melted version:

snowmen3

At the end, we’re left with nothing but a row of puddles:

snowmen4

Here’s a closeup of the snowmen. Each has a number on it corresponding to its hat brim color:

snowmen2

The roundup today will be hosted by Katie at Story Time Secrets. And, as always, if you want to see ALL past flannels, click on the icon to the right to go to our pinterest page.

Happy flanneling!

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Flannel Friday: Sorting Socks Game

7 Dec

socks

I have to start with a shout-out to my friend Becky who runs Denver Craft Ninjas (and who has just started an awesome new crafting party business, Kunoichi Craft Events): after several felt-related craft projects, she found herself left with far more felt than she could ever hope to use up. So she very kindly donated a chunk of it to the library for flannelboard making! That’s how I was able to create the clothes dryer below: with a large piece of cream-colored felt courtesy of Becky and the Denver Craft Ninjas.

socks1

I told the kids that I did my laundry before I came, and now I needed their help to sort the socks into pairs. If you’ve got a small enough group you can invite children up to pull out a sock and add it to the flannelboard. If its mate is already up there, they can put them together to make a pair. We identify the colors, too. If it’s a larger group like I had today, I do the sock pulling and putting. But the kids help me figure out what color we’ve got and if its mate is already on the board.

SOCK MONSTER!

SOCK MONSTER!

The kids had a great time with this game – the yelled out the colors and quickly noted a match. It’s a great addition to my clothing-themed storytime!

socks3

The clothes dryer is a box with a hole cut in (a kleenex box would work, although mine is a bit larger and sturdier), covered in cream-colored felt wrapped like a gift. I glued two pieces of felt over the hole but there’s plenty of room for me (or a kid) to stick my hand in and remove socks. I added black circles with paint for a little flair.

I’m really proud of this project and so far, the kids have LOVED it!

Today’s roundup will be hosted by Cate at Storytiming. And to see all past flannels, click on the icon to the right to visit our Pinterest page!

Happy flanneling!

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Flannel Friday: 5 Little Cookies

30 Nov

A quick-and-easy flannel Friday for y’all today, because that’s all I had time for. I made cookies for this same rhyme a while ago, but decided I don’t like them anymore. These took me about 15 minutes yesterday – just 5 circles of tan felt, with puffy paint “icing” (I like the way it looks more like icing than felt, but you can certainly do that too).

cookies

And here’s the rhyme:

5 little cookies, with frosting galore,

Mother ate the white one, and then there were 4.

4 little cookies, 2 and 2 you see,

Father ate the green one, and then there were 3.

3 little cookies, but before I knew,

Sister ate the yellow one, and then there were 2.

2 little cookies, oh what fun!

Brother ate the brown one, and then there was 1.

1 little cookie. Watch me run!

I ate the red one, and then there were NONE!

So – we have colors, we have counting, and we have cookies. 3 of my favorite things. I’ll be breaking out the cookie-related stories this month, as well as using one of my favorite chants, “Who Stole the Cookies from the Cookie Jar!” for a good sweet-tooth storytime.

The roundup today will be hosted by Linda at Notes from the Story Room. It’s a holiday EXTRAVAGANZA so get all your winter holiday flannels planned in one fell swoop!

Now there’s a phrase we don’t use often enough: ONE FELL SWOOP.

Happy flanneling.

 

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Flannel Friday: Make a Robot!

26 Oct

Here’s a flannel idea that includes vocabulary learning (shapes, sizes), print awareness (shape names) and a whole lotta fun! We’re gonna build a robot!

I cut a bunch of different-sized shapes out of felt. I stuck to square, rectangle, triangle and circle (because my portable flannelboard is small) but you could certainly add more. I also made labels for the four shape names in felt with fabric paint.

The first thing we did was organize our robot “parts.” I put up the shape names and then I asked the kids the name of the shape I held up and put it with its name. I only asked them about 2 or 3 of each shape, because I made lots and it would have taken too long. But we did talk about if the new shape was “bigger” or “smaller” than the other, and I mentioned that we had small, medium and large sizes.

Then the kids selected a piece for the body (if you have a small enough group you could ask individuals to come up and pick; we just did it by consensus). I asked what other parts we needed (head, legs, arms, feet) and we selected those shapes. Finally, we needed eyes, and I had a special set of those: two large googly eyes with velcro on the back. The result was something like this:

Or this:

Wheel feet!

All-in-all I think the kids had fun and if you do crafts with your storytime it would be fun to then allow the kids to put together their own robots with paper shapes and glue.

The flannel Friday roundup today will be hosted by Lisa at Libraryland. To see all past flannels organized into categories, click on the icon to the right for our Pinterest page.

Happy flanneling!

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Flannel Friday: D-U-S-T-Y (the horse)

31 Aug

Holy schnikies, people! It’s been far too long since I blogged. I apologize for my absence. Here, in penance, I offer you a super-easy flannelboard:

I made this one several years ago when, on short notice, I was invited to do storytime at a cowboy-themed end-of-school party for one of my preschool classes. I whipped this baby up quickly, and it shows. I’m sure you can make a much nicer version.

The text is from The Bilingual Book of Rhymes, Songs, Stories and Fingerplays. The tune is “Bingo“:

There was a cowboy,

rode a horse,

And Dusty was his name-o.

D-U-S-T-Y,

D-U-S-T-Y

D-U-S-T-Y

And Dusty was his name-o.

Like my B-I-N-G-O board, I started with the letters, and then replaced them, one by one, with a picture of a horse. We neighed instead of saying each letter. Eventually, the board was all horses.

Was his name-o

Neigh! Neigh! S-T-Y

Now, those are some horses of a different color!

The Roundup today will be hosted by Linda. To see all past flannels, click on the icon to the right that leads to our Pinterest board!

Happy flanneling!

 

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Flannel Friday: What Will Fat Cat Sit On? by Jan Thomas

27 Jul

I think many of us in library-storytimeland LOVE Jan Thomas’s books. They’re so simple, yet HILARIOUS. Who decides to write a book about dust bunnies who rhyme? Jan Thomas. Who decides to write about a fat cat deciding where to sit? Jan Thomas.

It’s the latter story that I decided to flannelize (yes, we decided that’s a word). I wanted my flannel pieces to look cartoonish, just like Thomas’s fun illustrations.

Here’s Fat Cat:

He enjoys his tuna.

Will Fat Cat sit on… THE COW!?

MOO!?

Will Fat Cat sit on the CHICKEN!?

SIT ON THE PIG! SIT ON THE PIG!

Will Fat Cat sit on the DOG?

GRRRRR….

Then what WILL Fat Cat sit on?

Oh boy…

Perhaps he could sit on…

…the CHAIR!?

OF COURSE!

And, you’ll just have to read the book to find out what happens next.

The pieces are all cut from felt and painted with Scribbles 3D Fabric Paint.  The cat, dog, and mouse  (I deleted the knickers) are from Marktoon.co.uk, a new site I found this week. Here are the cow,  chicken and pig. For the chair I photocopied a page in the book.

I’m considering adding some words to this (at least the word NO!) as that’s one thing I love about the book – the print awareness it reinforces.

The Flannel Friday roundup will be hosted by Amanda at Toddler Tales. To learn more about Flannel Friday (and how you can participate) visit our blog. Click the link to the right to see all the flannels (over a year’s worth) on Pinterest.

Happy Flanneling!

 

 

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