Flannel Board Fun: Birthday

Showing posts with label Birthday. Show all posts

Winter Friends Dress Up Set

I have officially mailed in my fee for an upcoming November Craft Fair! I did take part in a vendor fair at my preschool last spring, which inspired me to start my shop, but this is the first time I'm venturing out of my comfort zone to sell my sets in person, to strangers. I'm nervous, excited, and busy! I put together five of these sets last weekend, and hope some lovely families think they'll be perfect for their young children :) I will definitely be making a set for my classroom!

I think this would be a great table activity in a library following a story time on winter, penguins, owls, or any of the occupations/themes represented by the outfits...Some other ways to use this set:
Have the kids help you dress the critters! Pass out only one item from each outfit, and keep the coordinating items in your hand. Put the snowman on the board and put the hammer in his hand. "Uh oh, this worker has lost her hat! She only has a hammer! Does anyone have the hat for this construction worker?" You could also put all the accessories on one side of the board, and all the hats on the other side, and the kids can come up and make a match... Really, there are tons of ways to use a set like this--I hope you find some that work for you!

I've got lots of fun felt sets at my shop--come take a peek!

I'm hosting Flannel Friday this week! You can find the roundup here. Need more information about Flannel Friday? Visit the Blog and Facebook! Want a zillion more ideas? Check out Flannel Friday on Pinterest!

Dessert Set

This is the last in a series of sets I'm making for my preschool's vendor fair next week. Everything in this set comes apart, other than the stems from the cherries. So great for building fine motor skills, with the added bonus of imaginative play, early math like color naming and counting scoops....

Here's a super simple way to use this set to build all kinds of early math language, too.

Here's a video of one of the rhymes included with this set:

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

Little Gorilla

For years I've loved Little Gorilla, and I've been intending to make a flannel board version of it for almost as long. I think I once even printed out clip art images of each of the animals, intending to make a laminated version. But Flannel Friday is having it's birthday, and I wanted to do more than just a laminated story, and more than just cupcakes and presents (even though I love those too!)

So this week I got to work! It was difficult trying to make my pieces resemble the illustrations--those faces do not translate all that well to flannel... But, in the end I'm okay with what I have.

So, here's Little Gorilla:

Once there was a gorilla, and everybody loved him. His mother loved him. His father loved him. His whole family loved him! Even when he was only one day old, everybody loved Little Gorilla.

Pink butterfly flying through the forest, Green Parrot in his tree, and Red Monkey in her tree, all loved Little Gorilla.

Even big Boa Constrictor thought Little Gorilla was nice.

Giraffe, walking tall through the forest, was there when Little Gorilla needed him.

Young Elephant, and Old Elephant too, came to see him.

Lion roared his loudest roar for him.

Even Old Hippo took him wherever he wanted to go, because she loved Little Gorilla. Just about everybody in the great green forest loved Little Gorilla! Then one day, something happened... Little Gorilla began to grow...and grow...and grow.

And one day, Little Gorilla was BIG!

And everybody came, and everybody sang "Happy Birthday Little Gorilla!" And everybody still loved him.

This particular set isn't for sale, but please check out my shop with many of my other sets:

Flannel Board Fun SHOP

Flannel Friday is being hosted this week by Mollie at What Happens in Storytime! You can also find 850,000+ felt and story ideas at Flannel Friday's Pinterest pages, or Flannel Friday's Facebook Page --check them out!

Five Pretty Presents

~~Okay, I don't have a rhyme for this one yet!~~ I wanted to do presents for Flannel Friday's birthday. I wanted to make elaborately wrapped, ribbon-bedecked, eye-catching, fun, pretty, too-good-to-be-true, felt presents. That's as far as my plan went. ~~I thought it would be easy to find a rhyme, but so far, I'm a little stuck. I'll do more looking and come up with something, but until then~~, Happy Birthday Flannel Friday. So glad I found you!

...Wait! I'm back, with some ideas! Ah, the benefits of a sleepless night...

Print out some clipart pictures of toys, sized to fit under the presents. A stuffed bear, a tricycle, a doll, maybe a dinosaur, a ball, some blocks...anything that children in the preschool age range would like. Laminate/velcro. You know the drill.
Hide one toy under each present.
Perform, with birthday-worthy enthusiasm, this rhyme:

Five Pretty Presents

Five pretty presents with bows on top,

Sitting on a shelf in the big toy shop!

Along comes a friend (puppet or child) with a dollar to pay,

S/he buys a present

'cuz it's ____________'s birthday!

In my classroom, I might do this on a real birthday. I'd let a child come up to choose the present to take off and reveal the toy underneath, and then the birthday child gets to hold those gifts as they are revealed . Or, just use puppets. Or, a combo of both.

Another fun idea would be to use animal puppets or stuffed animals to be the birthday giftees. Print out clipart images of things that a bear, or duck, or frog, or pig, or dog, or cat, or whatever puppets you have would eat/roll in/play with/live in --and as the presents are revealed the children tell you which animal should receive that gift. Or use rhyming items, and the children tell you which animal gets the truck (the duck!) or the chair (the bear!).

For the puppet versions, you could use the rhyme above, and fill in the blank to the last verse with "someone", Reveal the present and have the children figure out whose birthday it is.

Or, you could just hide the items under the presents and have one puppet sing this song, courtesy of Falling Flannelboards:

Oh, where oh where has my present gone, oh where or where can it be?

I'm searching and singing my present song, can you please help me?

Then, when the item is revealed, if it goes with that puppet, he takes it and another puppet gets a turn. If the gift doesn't go with the puppet, everyone helps figure out where it goes.

And of course, we will also no doubt play a Hide-and-Seek game with this, using any little laminated animals or toys.

Little _________, Little ___________,

Playing Hide and Seek.

Are you in the __________ present?

Let's take a peek!

This particular set isn't for sale, but please check out my shop with many of my other sets:

Flannel Board Fun Shop

Counting Cupcakes!

This is a set that I won't use in front of a group, but I think the children will really love playing with it independently. This will be great for color sorting, counting, and patterning--and I expect there will be some imaginative play going on as well as they use these.

I simply drew these sweeties. Easy as pie. Or, cupcakes...

This particular cupcake set is no longer for sale, but here's a fun one for lots of fine motor fun and imaginative play:

Five Little Cupcakes in the Bakery Shop

So, last year I cheated. I found these cupcakes on Storytime Katie's blog, and I printed them out on cardstock, cut them out, laminated them and stuck a square of velcro on the back. I was all set for Five Little Cupcakes in the Bakery Shop--and they've served me well.

However, it was time to make a felt set of cupcakes, and with the Flannel Friday Birthday Extravaganza coming up, I decided there was no time like the present. (Which led me to make a set of felt presents, too--but that's another post!)

So, here are my sprinkle-covered, fancy-papered, puffy-painted cupcakes. I want to eat them... They came from a google search of cupcake images. There are a gazillion, and they made me hungry.

And here's the poem I use with these little sweeties:

Down around the corner at the bakery shop

Were five yummy cupcakes with sprinkles on top

Along came ________ with a dollar to pay

He/she bought a cupcake, and took it away!

(continue, counting down...)

I usually use a bear puppet and a laminated piece of pretend money, but when my group of kids is small, I have the children come up and take a cupcake. With the puppet, it's fun to have him eat really messily, but then he starts to get a bit of a tummy ache as he keeps going. By the end, he's just taking a small bite, and chopping up the last cupcakes to share with the children!

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Flannel Friday re-post: Ask Mr. Bear

In honor of Valentine's Day, I'm re-posting this little story about showing your mom a little love :)

Years ago I found a list of books that translate well to flannel boards... If I can find it again I will post it here! Anyway, one of the books on that list was Ask Mr. Bear,by Marjorie Flack, and though I did get the book for my classroom, I never did make it into a felt board. I finally got around to it last month, so here it is...

I scanned a page with each animal, one with Danny, and the last page--the hug :) I printed them out and outlined them in black marker, and then used the collage technique shown in this video Best Flannel Board Video Ever
to make the pieces. I used black fabric paint for the facial features and the mommy's bun...

(Updated to switch out the old grainy pics with what are hopefully a little more clear.)

Yep--Danny is reversible so he can follow the animals, and also face Mr. Bear as he talks to him!

This week you'll find the Flannel Friday roundup here and of course you'll find lots of other ideas at Flannel Friday's blog or Pinterest page.

Flannel Friday: Mary Wore Her Red Dress

We sing a version of this song ALL the time in my classroom--substituting the children's names and the clothes they are wearing as an opening song for our Small Group time. We've had the book and an accompanying cd in the room for several years (which we've used on occasion), but with the addition of this flannel board (I got the pattern here), the children are just in love with this song/story!

Sometimes we do the book before, during and/or after doing the flannel board version; usually we change the animal's names to the children's names (though some children don't want us to do that!).

We love to see if anyone is wearing the same color or article of clothing as any of the animals, and of course we talk about the fact that we don't have all the same things the animals do (long ears, tails, quills, fur, etc.), but we do have some of the same things (eyes, ears, mouth, etc.)

We play a guessing game (the next piece of clothing is something that covers your arms and keeps you warm in the winter; the next animal that's going to put something on is something that hops and has a fluffy tail; the animal we're going to dress next hunts for nuts in the fall...) There are really lots of things to do with this set--it was well worth the intricate cutting and fabric-paint-face-making required!