My Upcoming Holiday Shows!

*If you're not in the Pittsburgh area, my online shop is always open* 

FlannelBoardFun

 I'm so excited to participate in my first holiday craft show season!  Here are some of the amazing events where I'll be selling my sets--if you are in the Pittsburgh area, stop by to see me and many other local artists.  (If you're not in the 'burgh, shop local wherever you are!)

I Made it Northway Block

I Made it For the Holidays

Shop the Burgh Small Biz Saturday

Handmade Arcade

The Three Billy Goats Gruff

How many times have I started making this set?  Oh, about a million.  Finally, I've come up with a pattern I like!  I'm adding this to my tiny collection of good old fashioned stories, which currently includes Goldilocks and The Three Pigs.  I plan to come up with some more over the next few months--stay tuned!

                                  

Click here to buy this set!

Flannel Friday is being hosted this week by Jen at Adventures in Storytime! Please also check out the Flannel Friday Blog, Facebook, and Pinterest pages, which will give you tons of information and gazillions of ideas to spruce up your story times :)

Little Mouse: Hanukkah Variation

I'm a big fan of the Little Mouse game and all its variations!  Proof?  Check out this old post.  I have a Hanukkah set that I've also posted about before, and wanted a new way to incorporate it into story times. Enter a Little Mouse variation! (I like this way of exposing kids to other cultures in a developmentally appropriate way.)

Check out this lovely set for sale

By using the rhyme...

Little __________, Little ___________

Playing Hide and Seek...

Are you behind the __________?

Let's take a peek!

...you can come up with almost endless variations, all while exposing the children to Hanukkah related vocabulary words.  Examples:

Hanukkah gelt, Hanukkah gelt, 

Playing hide and seek...

Are you behind the Menorah?

Let's take a peek!

Little latke, little latke, 

Playing hide and seek...

Are you behind the Nun dreidel?

Let's take a peek!

(Obviously you'll need to brush up on your Hanukkah knowledge if you don't have much of it (that was me before I started teaching in a school with a pretty high Jewish population!))  Great opportunity for you to learn along with the kids, if that's the case.

Flannel Friday is being hosted this week by Jen!  Please also check out the Flannel Friday Blog, Facebook, and Pinterest pages, which will give you tons of information and gazillions of ideas to spruce up your story times :)  And of course, swing by my shop when you get a chance:  Flannel Board Fun!

Build a Snowman

Joining his robot and farm friends in my selection of Toddler Sets, this Build a Robot set is my latest creation.  This is a perfect set to put out at a felt table or wall for kids to use independently, but it can also be used to accompany a snow or snowman story time (see my other snowman post here.)

This frosty fellow is available in my Etsy Shop right here.

Some fun snowman and snow books I like:
One Mitten by Kristine O’Connell George

Red Sled by Lita Judge

Snowballs by Lois Ehlert
Snow by Manya Stojic
Snow Happy! By Patricia Hubbell
Snow! Snow! Snow! By Lee Harper

Under My Hood I Have a Hat by Karla Kuskin
The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats

A Really Good Snowman by Daniel J. Mahoney

If You Were a Penguin by Wendell and Florence Minor.

Amy is hosting the roundup this week!  You can also find lots of great ideas at the FF Pinterest Boards!

Five Little Gingerbread Men

I have a gingerbread man die cut, and it's been sitting around collecting a bit of dust lately.  So rather than bake actual cookies last night, I made some felt gingerbread.  Yummy :)

These guys are no longer available for sale, but I've got lots more right here!

There are millions of gingerbread poems, songs, and stories available online!  Here's the one I plan to use (stolen mostly from One Little Librarian) with these sticky fellows:

Five Little Gingerbread Men

Five little gingerbread men in a row (Hold up five fingers, waving back & forth)

__________ wants to eat one!

No, no, no! (shake finger at________ puppet))

But they look so sweet from head to toe (touch head then toes)

Crunch, munch...uh oh! (slap thighs on crunch, clap hands on munch, then puppet eats a gingerbread man right off the flannel board!!)

Flannel Friday's Roundup is being hosted by Kate this week.  You can also find tons of ideas at Flannel Friday's Pinterest Pages, the Flannel Friday Blog, and Flannel Friday's Facebook page.

Little Worm

I picked up some leaf dies this past week, and thought I'd put them to good use by making another variation of Little Mouse.  You can see the rest of them here.

I'm not selling these, but you can find lots of my other sets at my shop!

So, the rhyme goes like this:

Little Worm, Little Worm

Playing Hide and Seek...

Are you behind the dark brown leaf?

Let's take a peek!

All the instructions and explanation of this game are in the link above--enjoy!

Shawn is hosting the roundup this week. For more FF fun and information, please visit the blog, Facebook page, or Pinterest page.  And share these links with your co-librarians or co-teachers. The more we share, the better!

Old MacDonald, Part Three!

What is her obsession with Old MacDonald, you might be asking yourself.  I'm sort of asking myself the same thing!  This set isn't that different than my second set,  This one, though, is just right for Toddlers!  None of the pieces are small enough to be considered choking hazards, so this set is perfect for the little ones to use independently if they are so inclined.

I'm selling these cuties in my shop--come check it out!

As you can see, these pieces are pretty darn huge, so this is a great set to use with a large crowd where visibility might be an issue.  And of course you're not limited to just singing Old MacDonald with these pieces.  Adapt songs like The Wheels on the Bus (The Chicken on the Farm goes cluck, cluck, cluck...)  Make up stories using all or some of the animals...  Play rhyming games (I'm thinking of an animal, and her name rhymes with that thing we wear outside in cold weather...)

Here are some farm themed books that might work well for you, too:

Clip Clop by Nicola Smee

Hurry, Hurry by Eve Bunting

How Kind  and I Kissed the Baby by Mary Murphy

Old MacDonald Had a Farm by Jane Cabrera

Big Red Barn by Margaret Wise Brown

Mrs. Wishy Washy by Joy Cowley

Spots, Feathers and Curly Tails by Nancy Tafuri

Rosie’s Walk by Pat Hutchins

Bridget is hosting the roundup this week.  You can also find tons of ideas at Flannel Friday's Pinterest Pages, the Flannel Friday Blog, and Flannel Friday's Facebook page.  And come on over to my shop to check out lots more sets for sale:  Flannel Board Fun!

Toddler Bots

Why have I been ignoring my littlest friends?  Most of the sets I provide for the kids in my classroom are for age three and up, not only because of the size of the pieces, but also the quantity of pieces and complexity of the sets.  Enter my Toddler Build a Bot set!

These guys are no longer available for sale, but lots more are waiting for you right here! 

(By the way, I've done a similar set, with a lot more and smaller pieces for kids three and up--find my regular Build a Bots here.

Teachers, put these fellows out in your fine motor area or your book corner along with some individual flannel boards.  Librarians, these would be great on a felt table or large felt wall.

Librarians and teachers, these would be great to use during a story time!  Put your bases on the board, and then hand out the accessories to the kids, naming the colors and shapes as you go.  Then announce "Let's build some robots together!  If you have a yellow shape, come up and put it on one of the robots..."  Continue this way until you have what will surely be some extraordinary bots :)  This is a great way to build color and shape recognition, and to build vocabulary as you use words like dial, gear, antennae...

Here are some robot books to go along with the theme:

Little Bot and Sparrow by Jake Parker

Bitty Bot by Tim McCanna

The Robot and the Bluebird by David Lucas

Robots Robots Everywhere by Sue Fliess

Beep! Beep! Go to Sleep! by Todd Tarpley

...and some more goodies:

The Lights on the Robot (to the tune of The Wheels on the Bus)

The lights on the robot blink on and off, on and off, on and off.

The lights on the robot blink on and off, as he moves around!

(Continue with more verses:  arms/up and down,

Dials/turn left and right,

Legs/go up and down,

Power on the robot powers down/when it’s time for bed!)

If You’re a Robot and You Know It

If you’re a robot and you know it clank your coils (clap)

If you’re a robot and you know it clank your coils (clap)

If you’re a robot and you know it and you really want to show it clank your coils (clap)

Continue with: “Clunk your gears” (stomp feet), and “Press your buttons” (“Beep beep”)

Jessica is hosting the roundup this week.  You can also find tons of ideas at Flannel Friday's Pinterest Pages, the Flannel Friday Blog, and Flannel Friday's Facebook page.  

And hey, feel free to stop by my shop for more felt goodies: 

Flannel Board Fun :)

The Wheels on the Bus

A  friend has her son enrolled in a new, very small family child care center, and wanted to give the teacher a few flannel board sets to get her collection started.  The Wheels on the Bus was one of her requests, and here are the results:

( I have lots of sets available for sale in my shop:   Check them out :) )

I always like to mix things up, so once I wear out the traditional verses of this song, we sing about animals on the bus, using animals from Old MacDonald or finger puppets. Or sometimes I like to put a few chairs in a row and let the kids come up and pretend to be the various animals or people we are singing about--lots of fun!

Jessica is hosting the roundup this week.  You can also find tons of ideas at Flannel Friday's Pinterest Pages, the Flannel Friday Blog, and Flannel Friday's Facebook page.

Imagination Station

I was a preschool teacher for about 25 years, and in that time I learned so much about preschoolers.  I think one of my most valuable lessons is that children learn best through play.  They are most motivated to stay engaged with something that they have chosen themselves, and that they are interested in; something that they get to start and end when they are ready to do so.

  

I'm a member of several preschool Facebook groups, and I see a lot of questions about how to teach children colors, shapes, numbers, and letters.  As with most things, my answer is "through play".  I could go on and on about this, but instead I'll share this felt set!  

Plugging my shop!  This set and many more are available there :)

Using a set like this is a perfect way for children to learn colors, shapes, and sizes.  It lends itself to building imagination; fine motor skills; and math concepts like sorting and patterning.  But the best part about it is that's it's open-ended fun! 

"Teach" about colors and shapes and sizes as you read awesome books like Lemons are Not Red or Round is a Mooncake, and as you do chants like This is Big --and of course as you interact naturally but intentionally with the children in your care as they play!

 

Amy is hosting the roundup this week.  You can also find tons of ideas at Flannel Friday's Pinterest Pages, the Flannel Friday Blog, and Flannel Friday's Facebook page.

Pete the Cat's Shoes

I had a special request from a teacher to make a Pete the Cat--I Love my White Shoes set.  I copied my Pete from my Four Groovy Buttons set, but this time made Pete all from one piece of felt--no detachable head this time around!  Clip art searches provided the inspiration for the shoes and other items.  I'm happy with how he turned out--hopefully the kids in her classroom will be, too :)

If you're looking for other cat felt sets, I've got some here and here.

Lisa at LibraryLand is hosting Flannel Friday this week.  You can also find tons of ideas at Flannel Friday's Pinterest Pages, the Flannel Friday Blog, and Flannel Friday's Facebook page.

Frankie's Face

Continuing with my way-too-early Halloween sets!  I'm happy to debut Frankie's Face--another set that can be used during a story time, or individually by kids at a felt table.  I think a huge version of this on a felt wall would be awesome, too!  See my Witchy post for a few ideas on how to use this with a group...  

So, Frank is obviously great for a Halloween or Monster story time, but he could also work with an All About Me theme (talk about skin color!  Eye color!  Hair styles!  Scars!), or an Emotions theme (show how those eyebrow and mouth positions can indicate various emotions...)

Although these cuties are no longer available, I have lots of other fun holiday sets for sale!

Jessica is hosting the roundup this week.  You can also find tons of ideas at Flannel Friday's Pinterest Pages, the Flannel Friday Blog, and Flannel Friday's Facebook page.

Witchy

Halloween is fast approaching, and I thought it would be fun to make a not very scary witch set!


These little witches are perfect for kids at home or in the classroom.  Celebrate Halloween without all the sugar, and allow kids to work through their fears or worries by having control over something that might be a little scary for them!

This set is great for the fine motor table, individual felt boards, or for a felt table in the library.   Fine motor skills are enhanced when children play with felt sets, as they pinch, press, place and replace the pieces.

During a story time, pieces can be handed out so the children can help dress those cute little witches!  You could also do a version of How Do I Put it On (like this one).  Lots of color and body parts recognition and naming with this set...

Bridget is hosting the Roundup this week.  You can also find tons of ideas at Flannel Friday's Pinterest Pages, the Flannel Friday Blog, and Flannel Friday's Facebook page.