Flannel Board Fun

Big, Bigger, Biggest

Hmmm... Where did I originally see this? I can't remember! But it's super simple, and can be adapted many different ways:

A big bug, a bigger bug, the biggest bug I see--now help me count them! One...two...three!
A small bug, a medium bug, a big bug I see--now help me count them... One, two, three!
A yellow star, a blue star, an orange star I see--now help me count them...one, two, three!

See how you can change it up?! And this is SO simple to make--especially with clip art if you want to go that route. You could do animals, shapes, same colors, different colors, seasonal items, foods--this one really is endless in it's possibilities.

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

A House for Birdie

I saw this set while perusing Flannel Friday's Pinterest pages--it was originally posted here. I love the simplicity of the birds, though when I used this set today for the first time, one of my little girls couldn't stop asking me where the birds' feathers and wings were...

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

Shop Flannel Board Fun

So, I have never read the book this set is based on, but it seems that Birdie (the turquoise bird in the red house above) doesn't have a house, so he and his friends go house hunting together. I named the friends Bluey, Orangie, Yellowey, and Greenie. Of course. Anyway, as they come across each house they discover that although the house is too narrow, short or tall for Birdie, it is just the right size for one of his pals. They all celebrate each new house for their friend, and in the end, Birdie finds the house that is a perfect fit for him.

This is such a simple, simple story, but I cannot tell you how completely enthralled my little two-year-olds were. They fell in love with Birdie and his friends, feather-less and wing-less though they may be.

Flannel Friday is being hosted by Melissa at Mel's Desk! You can also find tons of ideas at Flannel Friday's Pinterest Pages, the Flannel Friday Blog, and Flannel Friday's Facebook page.

Five Little Ducks

Five Little Ducks is a classic, and a song I've shared with every group of kids I've taught for the past 20+ years. I started out just doing it as a finger play, and I still share the hand motions with the kids as we sing about the ducks. I made a foam set for the flannelboard about 5 or 10 years ago, and we've been using that. But I felt like it needed to be freshened up, so I scanned my foam ducks and printed them out to use as templates for this felt version. I also changed my old mama duck from yellow to white--because, um, mama ducks aren't yellow!

I've made a video with this set so you can see all the moves and hear the tune!

Click here for yet another song to sing with these cuties!

Five Little Ducks

Five little ducks went out one day (hold up five fingers)
Over the hills and far away

(move hand like it's going over hills, then hand to forehead as if you're looking far away)

The mama duck said"Quack, quack, quack, quack." (other hand quacks like the bill of a duck)But only four little ducks came back. (fold one finger down)

(count down till all the ducks are gone)

Sad Mama duck went out one day

Over the hills and far away

Mama duck said

Quack, quack, quack, quack

And all of the five little ducks came back!

Click here to buy this set at my shop!

Flannel Friday is being hosted by Melissa at Mel's Desk! You can also find tons of ideas at Flannel Friday's Pinterest Pages, the Flannel Friday Blog, and Flannel Friday's Facebook page.

Freight Train

Freight Train by Donald Crews has long been a favorite in my classroom. We've had a laminated paper version in my classroom for many years. It is wonderful, but it's a little too large to work well on our flannel board. We have it out for the children to use on their own, and they love it. But I still wanted a felt version for the teacher to use, too.

So, I took those pieces and shrunk them down to use as my pattern. When the train moves in daylight, we put up the sun; in darkness, we put up the moon. There's the tunnel, and a city. I skipped the trestle, because it would take 150 hours to make it... I used a little fabric paint to put some of the details on the train cars, but tried to keep these pretty simple. The city is the most detailed piece, and I love it :)

You can no longer buy this set but I've got lots of other goodies here.

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.

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.

Chickens and Chicks

Okay, spring has sprung! And with spring come chicks, and eggs, and other stuff not featured in this post. Such as the Cadbury mini eggs I'm eating by the handful.

These happy chicks are felt versions from this post from Mel's Desk. Here's the poem:

One Little Chick

One little chick was yellow

One little chick was brown

One little chick was blue

And one was upside down!

I cannot WAIT to share this with my Two Year Olds. They were so excited about Silly Sally when I read it to them today, and I know they're going to flip when I put that gray chick on the board upside down! Oh the giggles!!

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

Flannel Board Fun Shop

The pieces below come from the same post at Mel's Desk. I didn't do this one in felt--just found some clip art and printed it out. I took the pictures before the set was laminated--yay for no glare!

Ten Fluffy Chickens

Five eggs and five eggs (Add a clutch of eggs each time you say “five eggs”)

And that makes ten

Sitting on top (Add the hen)

Is Mother Hen

Cackle cackle cackle (Clap hands as you say Cackle!)

What do I see?

Ten fluffy chickens (Flip over each clutch of eggs)

Yellow as can be.

I need to do more of these super simple sets--I love them, and I know my littlest ones will too.

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

Three Green and Speckled Frogs

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.)

Do you need these cuties in your life?

Click here to buy these guys :)

Just in case you need them, here are the lyrics:

Three 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 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!

Herman the Worm

When I was a little girl, my aunt Suzie told me the most hilarious story about her friend Herman, who ate various animals and grew bigger and bigger, until finally he burped and went back to his normal size. I remember asking her to tell the story over and over again (she was quite the dramatic storyteller!), but I had forgotten all about it until I saw this post and the video that's linked in there.

I googled some clipart and the results are below. I hope I can tell it with as much flair as my dear aunt Suzie--can't wait to give it a try soon!

Herman the Worm

One day, I was walking down the street and I saw Herman, and he was this big! And I said, Herman! What have you done?!?

And he said, "I ate an ant."

The next day, I was walking down the street and I saw Herman, and he was this big! And I said, Herman! What have you done?!?

And he said, "I ate a chicken."

The next day, I was walking down the street and I saw Herman, and he was this big! And I said, Herman! What have you done?!?

And he said, "I ate a cow."

The next day, I was walking down the street and I saw Herman, and he was this big! And I said, Herman! What have you done?!?

And he said, "I ate an elephant."

The next day, I was walking down the street and I saw Herman, and he was this big! And I said, Herman! What have you done?!?

And he said, "I burped."

Felt Doll Set

Here's another set I made to sell at my upcoming vendor fair. This is definitely one I'll also keep available for the kids to use independently. I know lots of story telling, vocabulary building, and conversations will happen while this one is in use.

These remind me so much of the paper dolls I used to love as a child, but they're so much easier to use. I can't wait to bring this out, and I'm sure I'll add more clothes and accessories every now and then.

This set is available in my shop!

So Many Fish!

I've updated this post with pictures of my new fishies! See below for the chant that goes along with this one--though now that I've made this big new set, I can see lots of other ways to use these, similar to ways we use my Mitten Match set...

This is a set I made many years ago. The fish are cut from sheets of foam. I drew them with coordinating colors of marker on the foam and then cut them out, and stuck a square of velcro on the back of each one. I think this probably works best in a classroom, where the teachers know the names of all the children--not sure how valuable it would be for librarians, unless you know your group well enough that you know every child's name... It definitely works well for me when I have a smaller group of children, so there's not a long wait for anyone to come up and take their fish.

With my new found skills and insight (!) I will be re-making this set using felt (no little velcro squares to tempt the children to peel, peel, peel), and I will make the fish much bigger. These are fine for small group time, but bigger is generally better. I'm not sure why I always made my story/game pieces so small in the past. What was I thinking?

Goodies