I love nice, crisp, sweet apples on a nice, crisp, sweet fall day! I also love soft, adorable felt apples on any kind of day. That's why I made my APPLE bingo set, and it's never failed me yet.
But how did those apples even grow? Were apple blossoms involved in some way?? And now that we've got apples, shouldn't we count them? And wait, wouldn't it be fun to hide a worm behind the apples? Yes! Yes! Let's make a huge apple tree set that we can play with in all kinds of ways!
First, let's make them grow. We'll start off with a bare tree, with no little apples growing on it. And then an apple blossom starts to grow...and soon, it turns right into an apple!
Spring sprang some time ago, so I'm a little late to the butterfly game! But better late than never, here are my pieces to go along with a couple of caterpillar/butterfly rhymes/songs:
I might update my caterpillar at some point to make it fit with the more realistic butterfly and chrysalis, but for now it will do!
Here are a couple of the songs I do with this one:
The Fuzzy Caterpillar (to the tune of The Itsy Bitsy Spider)
The fuzzy caterpillar
Curled upon a leaf,
Spun her little chrysalis
And then fell asleep.
While she was sleeping,
She dreamed that she could fly,
And later when she woke up
She was a butterfly!
The only tune I could find to link and share for this next one is not the tune I use, and I don't like the annoying Youtube video, so I'm not sharing it here... Hopefully you can figure out a tune that works for you! You can always just chant the lyrics instead of singing them.
The Caterpillar
A caterpillar crawled to the top of a tree,
"I think I'll take a nap,” said she.
So under a leaf, she began to creep
to spin her chrysalis and she fell asleep.
All winter she slept in her chrysalis bed.
Till spring came along one day, and said,
"Wake up, wake up little sleepy head!
Wake up--it's time to get out of bed!"
So she opened her eyes that sun shiny day--
She was a butterfly and flew away!
And here's a song we sing without the use of the flannel pieces.
I Spin My Chrysalis (to the tune of Pop Goes the Weasel--but a lovely slow version)
I spin and spin my chrysalis (roll hands)
I go to sleep inside. (curl up in ball)
When I wake up I've changed indeed-- (wiggle)
I'm a butterfly! (spread out arms and shake them off--and then fly!)
Flannel Friday is being hosted this week by Kate at FeltBoardMagic. 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!
Bugs gross me out. So, I needed to neutralize them for this set. In other words, make them pretty and rather unrealistic. I guess I'm doing a disservice to the children in my classroom by doing this, but I see it done in a lot of books too, so I'm just going with the flow :)
In my classroom, I have individual flannel boards for the children to use on their laps, on the floor, or at a table. That's where I'll have these buggies available. I might also incorporate them into a small group time and let the children help me build some bugs on the big board. Lots of great opportunities for vocabulary and imagination building with this set!
If you're a librarian, you could make these available at a felt table after a bug, spring, or garden story time.
Flannel Friday is being hosted by Bridget at What is Bridget Reading this week. For more FF fun and information, please visit the blog, Facebook page, or Pinerest page! And share these links with your co-librarians or co-teachers. The more we share, the better!
Finally! I have been trying to make a new Over in the Meadow felt set for at least a year. I think I was overwhelmed with the number of pieces--I had planned to make the accompanying scenery like sand, tree, beehive, etc. But when I gave myself permission to just do the animal babies and their grown ups, it all came together :)
My animals are as cute as I could make them ;) My eyeballs are cut using a die cuts--no way can I make my circles that neat with a pair or scissors!
Over in the Meadow This is nice for one-one-one, but the illustrations are not good for group story times
I'm hosting Flannel Friday this week--and you can find the roundup here! For more FF fun and information, please visit the blog, Facebook page, or Pinerest page! And share these links with your co-librarians or co-teachers. The more we share, the better!
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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.
I've always loved the Little White Duck song. I especially like this version of the book, but I only have a small board book copy which is hard to use with a large group, and which I believe is missing some of the pages from the larger copy.
Sometimes I'll use my classroom's old, worn out, too-small felt set of Little White Duck, along with Ivan Ulz's version of the song. But that set is so old, worn out, and too-small that I had to DO something about it!! So, I did this:
Here's a video of these cuties in action:
And here are the lyrics:
There's a little white duck, sitting in the water
A little white duck, doing what he oughter
He took a bite of a lily pad
Flapped his wings and he said, "I'm glad
I'm a little white duck sitting in the water
Quack, quack, quack!"
There's a little green frog swimming in the water
A little green frog, doing what he oughter
He jumped right off of the lily pad
That the little duck bit and he said, "I'm glad
I'm a little green frog swimming in the water
Ribbit, ribbit, ribbit!"
There's a little black bug floating on the water
A little black bug doing what he oughter
He tickled the frog on the lily pad
That the little duck bit and he said, "I'm glad
I'm a little black bug floating on the water
Buzz, buzz, buzz!"
There's a little red snake slithering in the water
A little red snake doing what he oughter
He frightened the duck and the frog so bad
He ate the little bug and he said, "I'm glad
I'm a little red snake laying in the water
Hiss, hiss, hiss!"
Now there's nobody left sitting in the water
Nobody left doing what they oughter
There's nothing left but the lily pad
The duck and the frog ran away, I'm sad
'Cause there's nobody left sitting in the water,
Boo, Hoo, Hoo!
These will be making their debut next week with my summer campers! Can't wait to see what they think :)
Oh, and by the way:
Want to buy this set? You can check it out at my shop right here.
This school year I've been so focused on making flannel versions of new songs and stories, that some of my old favorites have been sort of forgotten. I've had a Three Green and Speckled Frogs flannel board set for many years. I actually like it a lot--I didn't really need to make a new set, but for the fact that one of our bugs (or at least one of its antennae) is missing.
But I wanted cuter eyeballs, and bigger everything...
And so, I made these adorable replacement froggies and buggies. And I wrote some other fun songs to go with the set, so I can use this a billion times instead of just a million :) (Here's Three Green Frogs on a Log, for example.)
Sat on a speckled log Eating some most delicious bugs. Yum! Yum! One jumped into the pool Where it was nice and cool Now there are two green speckled frogs--glub glub.
Two green and speckled frogs Sat on a speckled log Eating some most delicious bugs. Yum! Yum! One jumped into the pool Where it was nice and cool Now there is one green speckled frog--glub, glub.
One green and speckled frog Sat on a speckled log Eating some most delicious bugs. Yum! Yum! He jumped into the pool Where it was nice and cool Now there are no green speckled frogs--glub glub!
For my school's upcoming Vendor Fair, I made this little flower set. Almost everything comes apart--the children can build flowers and butterflies, and can tell little stories with the tiny bugs...
Though I wouldn't use these myself in front of a group, I think having sets like this on hand so children can do their own, completely open-ended storytelling would be wonderful in the classroom or library setting. You could of course use a set that corresponds with your storytime theme if you use them, but having random sets available allows the child to lead, which is always a benefit in my opinion.
We've been doing Little Mouse variations for years in my classroom--it is always a winner with children ages 2-4. Up until this year we had a little mouse who hid in a house, a little fox who hid in a box, and a little cat who hid in a hat. They are well loved and still around, but recently I went a little crazy and made several new versions! (Update: I now have a million more: they're all here.
The chant is as follows, subbing the bold words as appropriate:
Little mouse, little mouse, are you in the green house?
And then you use all kinds of dramatic techniques to check behind the house, act confused/disappointed/stumped/etc. as you seek out that crazy critter! We like to pat our legs as we do the chant, just to get the kids even more involved and aware of the rhythm... And of course invite them to tell you which color to check under (sometimes just lightly touching the one YOU want to do next will send a subliminal message and they'll 'choose' it for you!)
Here's an example of this set in action (click to see the video!):
The little duck and the trucks above, and the little bug and rugs below, were made based on clip art. (I often include the word "cute" in my google searches for various clip art samples.)
The Little Peacock/Clock set below is printed out on card stock and laminated, with a sticky square of Velcro applied to the back. I have done the same with a dinosaur and a set of doors.
Below is another variation called Piggy Piggy Pancake (I originally found this here.)
Pink piggy, pink piggy, let me see...
Do you have some yummy pancakes for me??!
(We do a lot of snorting and pretending to eat like a pig in this one--it's so much better that way :) We sometimes even have to hose off the syrup that gets all over everyone from eating so sloppily!)
Have some extra time on your hands? You can make these cuties with this pattern!
There are several other rhyming things to do with this (frogs and logs or clogs; bears and chairs; ants and plants), but an easier chant to use, in which you can just randomly pick animals and objects is this:
Little _______, Little _____________,
Playing Hide and Seek,
Are you in the (red) ________________?
Let's take a peek!
So really, you could just print out a bunch of small creatures and critters, and a bunch of slightly larger familiar objects, and have a hide and seek party!
