Christmas Fun!

 We need some jolly old Christmas storytime fun, don't we?  Yes, indeed!  So here we go:

The laminated jingle bell is just right for a Christmas version of Little Mouse:

Jingle bell, jingle bell, you're hiding somewhere!
Are you behind the Christmas tree?

Let's peek under there!

And this set is just right for a Christmas version of Brown Bear, Brown Bear.  

I like it so much, I even made a video of it :) 

Fingers too tired to make your own?  Visit my shop:

Five Presents Wrapped with Bows

 

Weee!  I'm loving this set for celebrating any number of gift-giving occasions.  

The video below is just one example of how to use these presents.

Christmas Trees

Who says Christmas has to wait till December?  The kids in my classroom have been decorating Gingerbread Houses all summer!  I have a feeling they'll enjoy decorating these trees just as much.  Librarians, don't discount these--I picture them at a table in your children's section after a story time about winter--alongside a felt board of dreidels, menorahs and gelt perhaps! (Coming soon to a blog near you...)

With all the different shapes and colors, there's just so much patterning, counting and sorting to be done!  

I put my CuttleBug to good use with the decorations--I've been using wool blend felt, and even the thinnest dies cut right through it with no problem.  This was great news--I was so disappointed that the thin dies wouldn't cut acrylic felt.  One more reason to switch to wool blend. It is a bit more expensive, but I really love the quality and the colors are amazing.

This set is sold out in my shop, but lots of other holiday sets are available!

Flannel Friday is being hosted this week by Laura at Library LaLaLand  Check out the round up there, and don't forget to find more amazing flannel board ideas at Pinterest and Facebook and the Flannel Friday Blog!

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 

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!

Hooray for Hat!

This is another case of not having read the book (Hooray for Hat) before making a flannel version of it.  Luckily with this one I adore the story and am so glad I shamelessly copied Laura's version.  I've used this with equal success in my two-year-old class as well as my three-year-old class.  Love it!

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

Flannel Board Fun Shop