Flannel Friday Roundup 9/30/16




Welcome fall, and welcome to the Flannel Friday Roundup for 9.30.16, and thanks to everyone who contributed!

Starting off, we've got two sets from Kate at Felt Board Magic--an A is for Apple sorting set, and a super simple and super cute take on B-I-N-G-O:  RAINY Was the Weather.

Next, we take a trip to outer space with Keith at Felt-tastic Flannelboard Funtime.  Keith always teaches me something new, and his Zoom Zoom Zoom Redux does not disappoint, with new tidbits of knowledge about Jupiter, Juno, and more...

Amy at One Little Librarian has an adorable and magical Colorful Squirrel set.  If you love the Rainbow Stew song, you are sure to love this take on it--great for color recognition and fall story times!

Jane (and Piper) at Piper Loves the Library celebrate International Dot Day!  Please take a look at her post about art, creativity, and community collaboration (and check out her fabulous, open-ended flannel dot board, which everyone should have!)

And finally, I'm posting my simplest set ever--Hickory Dickory Dock, and an update to my Ocean Set.

Thanks again to all our contributors this week.  Get ready for next week's Halloween Extravaganza, which will be hosted by Lisa at Thrive After Three.  You can find more information about Flannel Friday at Pinterest, Facebook, or the Flannel Friday Blog.

Ocean Set Update




I posted my original Ocean Set here several months ago, but decided to add a shark and a tuna fish so that it could also be used to perform Slippery Fish.

There are actually SO many songs you can use with this set. Circle time fun for all your fish loving friends :)  ( Click here to see some videos of them! )

If you buy this set, I include a list of ocean-themed book titles to go along with it, and the lyrics to several ocean rhymes and songs that work with these cuties.

 I have switched to using wool-blend felt, so I re-did the whole set last weekend, and I'll be bringing it in and using it in my classroom this coming week.  The kids have been playing with my Construction Set for the past few weeks, and I'm looking forward to seeing how they use this set...





Want fun tidbits for preschool teachers, librarians, 
or anyone with young kids in their life?




Flannel Friday is being hosted by your's truly this week--the roundup is here.
You can find many more ideas on Pinterest, and learn more about Flannel Friday on Facebook or the FF blog!

Hickory Dickory Dock

Phew!  Busy week... So: simple, simple, simple flannel for me this week...

What's simpler than Hickory Dickory Dock?  Especially when Judy Sierra provides a ready to print pattern??  I am pretty sure I downloaded her Favorite Flannel Board Stories free at some point last year, but now I can't find a link to share.  Her patterns are basic and remind me of the 1980s for some reason, but I like them enough to use them when I'm short on time.

So there's the mouse going up, and there he is going down...  Not much else to say!

That set isn't for sale, but check out many more in my shop!

Flannel Friday is being hosted by your's truly this week--the roundup is here.
You can find many more ideas on Pinterest, and learn more about Flannel Friday on Facebook or the FF blog!





Little Miss Muffet


I've been enjoying going back to the basics with nursery rhymes lately, so this week I made the pieces to go along with Little Miss Muffet.  We do have an older laminated card stock version that looks like it dates back to the 80s, but I like this sweet little girl, her cute spider friend, and her fancy tuffet quite a bit more :)  Her socks are looking pretty scruffy, but they'll do!

This set isn't for sale in my shop, but many of my other sets are!


Little Miss Muffet
Sat on her tuffet
Eating her curds and whey.
Along came a spider 
And sat down beside her
And frightened Miss Muffet away!

It's always fun to make Miss M run away and hide!  This is also a good one to act out if you have a small group of kids.




Flannel Friday is being hosted by Laura at Library Lalaland! and of course you'll find lots of other ideas at Flannel Friday's blog or Pinterest page.

Pot of Songs (Not-a-Flannel Friday)

Though this isn't a flannel board set, I hope it might inspire or be helpful to other teachers or librarians, so I wanted to share it on Flannel Friday.  Even for seasoned teachers, librarians, or presenters of children's story times in any capacity, sometimes you have everything planned--and you just draw a blank... Or your group time isn't going well and you need to switch gears, and you can't think of anything to do...  When you're new to leading a group of kids in songs, dances, or movement activities, you are even more likely to need a little help.

I put this system together many years ago (as you can tell by the frayed and faded papers), and it has served me (and my co-teachers) well over the years.  It's extremely easy to add to, portable, color-coded, and often a group time lifesaver!

First, the pot of songs:

It's a metal flower pot, to which I attached (messily) the color code that goes along with the whole system.  Inside are my laminated Song Strips, which contain the titles of various songs/rhymes/games/poems/etc, along with (in most cases) a picture that represents that title.  



In a basket next to the Pot of Songs (which we keep on the windowsill in our group time area), are the lyrics to all of those Song Strips. PLEASE excuse the horrible looking envelopes below, which I will be re-making with non-fading paper this weekend!!  After this many years I have most of my lyrics memorized, so I rarely use these envelopes, and didn't realize how tatty they are.  Anyway, the lyrics are snuggled inside the envelopes, which are color coordinated to go along with the Song Strips.  Each card also has a coordinating colored dot in the corner, or are backed in the coordinating color, so when teachers do use the lyric cards and have a pile to put away, they can easily find where they go.

 The examples below show how everything is coordinated.  Often the lyric card also has movement instructions, suggestions on different ways to do the song, etc.  (We use the pictures as often as we can so that the kids can "read" the Song Strips, too.)


**I'm editing to add more about how we use this system.  Each week one of the teachers in the classroom is the Large Group Teacher--meaning she's the one who leads the group times that include music, movement, songs, and stories.  The teacher pulls the Song Strips she's going to use for the week (and coordinating lyric cards if she needs them), clips them together with a binder clip, and puts them on the windowsill in our Large Group area.  When Large Group starts, all she has to do is grab her clipped strips, and she's ready to go.  If things aren't going well or she wants to go in a different direction, the pot is sitting right there so she can pull additional songs/games as needed. 

We can also pull strips out of the can and easily take them with us if we want to go outside or to another room and do a little music and movement, and because everything is color coded, it's easy to pull what we need.  Sometimes we also invite the kids to choose the Song Strips, or ask them what color strip they want us to do...  It's really quite flexible and useful.  I think I would feel lost without it, and it keeps me from only doing the same tried and true favorites over and over (though of course we do lots of repetition because it's a good thing to do!)

Each year when I discover new songs (um, thanks JBrary!!), I just add more Song Strips and lyric cards to the mix.  I also have a tub of shaker eggs, and I store the Song Strips and lyric cards for shaker songs right in that tub so I can just pull the whole lot out and be ready to go.

If you'd like a small starter set of song strips and lyric cards, they're free right here:






Flannel Friday is being hosted by Mollie at Storytime with Miss Mollie, and of course you'll find lots of other ideas at Flannel Friday's blog or Pinterest page.




Christmas Finger Puppet Set

Okay, so these aren't actually finger puppets.  I bought the pattern for them at Precious Patterns on Etsy, and I fully intended to make them into puppets.  But I also plan to sell them in my shop (editing to say they're sold out :) ), and I decided it would be more time efficient and perfectly acceptable to make them into flannel board figures instead.  So rather than stitch everything together, I followed the patterns but glued them together instead.  I think it works!  I know the kids will love them (though I probably won't use the Santa and Mrs. Claus in the classroom, since I steer away from the whole "get, get, get" aspect of the holidays.  Except in my personal life ;)).

If you're not a seamstress but you love how these look, I think they would be easy enough to make into finger puppets simply by gluing the various pieces together as I did, and then just whip stitching around the outer edges.  I adore the look of these.  My farm and jungle finger puppet patterns came from the same site, and I have the Halloween set just waiting to be made :)






These Christmas Cuties are sold out, but find tons of holiday felt goodies in my shop!

Flannel Friday is being hosted by Mollie at Storytime with Miss Mollie, and of course you'll find lots of other ideas at Flannel Friday's blog or Pinterest page.


Five Little Mice


I have had these little squeakers ready to go for many, many months--except for the mama mouse.  Before some quick adjustments tonight, she looked sort of like a gray, long-tailed dog.  She only had one ear, and it was the wrong shape.  So I trimmed off her nose, peeled off that puppy ear, shortened her tail, made her nose pink, added a smile, and put two mouse ears on.  Ahhh.  Much better!



Here's the mama before I fixed her--yikes!

I found a couple of songs to go along with this. I can't for the life of me figure out where I got the first one...  Please let me know if I stole it from you!

To the tune of Five Little Ducks:
Five little mice went out to play
Through the fields and far away.
Mama mouse called "squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak!"
Then one little mouse played hide and seek.

Count down to zero, then...

Five little mice played hide and seek
Didn't come home when their mama squeaked.
                                     But when the big cat started to hiss,
They all ran home as quick as this (clap!)

I'd use my kitten puppet to go along with this, and I think I'll make (or borrow from another set) some items for the mice to hide behind.

The second one is from Kididdles:
Five little mice came out to play
Gathering crumbs along the way
Out came pussycat sleek and fat
Four little mice go scampering back
(continue, counting down)

Flannel Friday is being hosted this week by Kate at Felt Board Magic.  
For more info about Flannel Friday, check out these links:

And hey--I'd love to have you visit my shop!




Flip Flap Fly

I love this little book.  But it's little.  I haven't even checked to see if I can get a bigger version to use with larger groups--I just went for it and made a felt set to go along with the poem instead.  I love the illustrations, I love the poem, the vocabulary, the rhymes...  I hope my kids love seeing it on the flannel board!  (And it goes well to a jazzy little version of the Twinkle Twinkle Little Star tune, too!)










Flannel Friday is being hosted this week by Lisa at LibraryLand.  
For more info about Flannel Friday, check out these links: