Today’s flannelboard comes from the wonderful book Storytime Magic – a great resource for any storytime provider. Here are the basics of the story (I have modified it a bit to include the colors I wanted):
The king and queen have a beautiful baby girl, whom they name Princess Marigold. They decide she must have a blanket as beautiful as she is. The king looks out the window at the blue sky and declares, “she must have a blanket as blue as the sky.” The queen also looks out and sees the bright sun, and declares, “the blanket must be as blue as the sky and as yellow as the sun.” This continues…
As white as the fluffy clouds… As orange as the flowers in my garden…
As green as the grass… As red as the cherries in the trees… As purple as the grapes on the vine… As brown as the earth from which they grow…
I like how it makes a nice little vignette
And, finally, as pink as our baby’s cheeks.
The servants look everywhere for just such a blanket but can’t find one. They bring in tailors and weavers from all over the kingdom and each can create a blanket with one of the colors, but not all. Finally, an old woman comes forward and offers her faded quilt that she wrapped her children in as babies. She made it from scraps of yarn, blankets, a dress, apron, curtains, and ribbons.
The King and Queen state that they are honored to have it, as it is “as beautiful as our daughter but also as warm as a mother’s embrace and as light as a father’s kiss.” They wrap Princess Marigold in the blanket and they all live happily ever after.
I wanted the quilt to have a bit of a “crazy quilt” look so I glued different-sized squares to a backing piece of felt and then used my very-beginning sewing skills to sew over them so it looks pieced together.
Here are the King, Queen and Princess; they’re a set of finger puppets someone in the office received as a freebie from Muzzy. The princess is clearly not a baby, but she’s the only princess I’ve got! If I can find a small baby doll I’ll use that instead, with my folkmanis prince and princess puppets.
I like this story because it’s a cumulative tale (we have to recite all of the colors each time, adding each new color) with lots of opportunity for the kids to participate and practice their color names. It’s also just a sweet story! Storytime Magic has patterns but I made my own; if you’d like to recreate mine, it’s here. Please, though, if you use it, give me credit, and do not re-publish.
Today’s roundup is being hosted by Storytime Katie! For more information about Flannel Friday (and to learn how to participate) visit our blog. To see all past flannels, organized visually by category, click on the “flannel friday” icon to the right.
Happy flanneling!
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