Using Felt in the Classroom
Using felt boards in the classroom To develop oral language skills and the "Big 5" literacy areas Presented by: Theresa Graham
First things first: What to do if you don't have a felt board:
Here are some great (and in-expensive) ways to make felt boards: *Flat carpet flannel board: Cut a large rectangle or circle of felt or flannel. When you're doing a flannel board activity, lay the fabric on your classroom carpet and have the children sit around it. This is great if you have limited wall space and can be folded up and moved for center time. I use the smaller pre-cut rectangle pieces for making words activities. *Flat box flannel board: Open and lay out flat a large cardboard box. Spray adhesive on the front of the box. Place a large piece of felt on the front and smooth out the fabric from the center to the edges. The thick foam boards are also great for making flannel boards. I use the clear packing tape to fold the felt over the back and tape down for a nice appearance. Pieces can be stored inside the box. Pizza boxes work great for this. *Small pieces made above work well for individual lap-sized flannel boards as well. *Big Box Flannel board- Same as above only cover the entire outside of a large box for more kids to work on! Folding flannel board: Use the boards that are typically used for science fairs. Hint-use the eraser of a pencil to press and crease each fold so the flaps still bend. Again, use the spray adhesive and packaging tape to apply felt to the board. Of course, if you don't want to mess with making a board yourself and are willing to spend some money you can always invest in a commercially made felt board and products. If you are interested in any of the felt products/boards I have you may request a catalog from me or order online Product List. Tammy Lessick #12699 Your StoryTime Felts Independent Consultant tammy@learningfelt.com www.learningfelt.com 910-489-7284
ANY great story works wonderful in a center for a re-telling/verbal language skills activity for the kids. Vocabulary Development: Bug on a Rug-or Fly on a Wall-or Bear in a Chair-or.... (Vocabulary development, positional words) Using whatever you have available-mouse and a house...Let the children take turns positioning the animal felt piece to the object. Give the children different instructions using positional words...put the mouse over the house, put the mouse under the house...etc... What's missing??? (Vocabulary-oral language) Using cutouts of items that you may be focusing on that week: vocabulary from a story you are working with for example-or pieces form a nursery rhyme Place all the pieces on the board. Have the children close their eyes, and invite a child to choose a cutout and hold it behind his/her back. Have the kids open their eyes. The child holding the cutout needs to DESCRIBE it WITHOUT saying its name. Let the other children guess. This can also be played with numbers by the child describing its shape or something that has that many like a bikes wheels would be for the number 2...or, letters: this letter says /t/ or this letter comes after letter s....or character traits from a character in a story...big, bad, big white teeth, huffs and puffs... This is something you will have to MODEL for a while!
Vocabulary and other curriculum areas:
It's very easy to integrate any of the other subject areas with a felt board and voc. development. It gives the children a wonderful visual to remember! For example...to help children learn the parts of a plant and the sequence of a plant growing...use felt and tell the story of how a pumpkin grows and label the parts as you go! What a great multi-sensory way to learn our science vocabulary! Math is just as easy-let the kids build pictures with the shapes-or work problems with numbers-many of the alphabet games can be played with numbers, children can match sets to numbers, collect date, graphing, size, one-to-one correspondence, sorting/classifying, patterns and ordering...all these activities require the kids to know "math vocabulary" and can all easily be done on a felt board as a interactive, visual, multi-sensory way to learn! Tricks and tips: I suggest presenting the felt board activities to the whole group first-after a few days of doing the story or activity together it then will become a center for them to experiment with...procedures are in place before this can happen. If you have the story on CD-you may play it the first day-after that, have the children do their own re-telling, writing and/or acting out of the stories.
Advantages of Using Felt Visual Aids Our Felt visual aids : *Are washable and color fast *Are made of soft material *Contain bright colors that attract and hold a child’s attention *Are durable: you can relax as the children enjoy working with the figures, knowing they can’t easily destroy them *Provide hands-on experience *Encourage creativity *Consists of non-violent figures *Develop alphabet and number skills *Involve math manipulatives *Teach sequencing *Enhance verbal skills as the children listen to, retells, and creates stories *Require only a small, one-time investment *provide great support to existing curriculum *Builds self-esteem in the child *Includes literature for usage *Can be used to set up learning centers *Contain many self-correcting stories *Can be purchased uncut for a greater savings or already cut and assembled SEE, TOUCH, LISTEN and LEARN!
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| IDEAS for using the felt board in the classroom: Letters/Sounds: Alphabet hunt: (letter recognition/order) Before beginning this activity, hide your lowercase letters around the classroom. Place the uppercase cutout in order on the board. Make sure to leave spaces between each letter.*point to each letter as you sing the "ABC song". Tell the children that they are going on an alphabet hunt to find the lost lowercase letters. Explain to the kids that once they "rescue' a letter they have to come back to the group to help it find it's matching letter. After all the kids have found a letter help them match them up and then sing the "ABC song" again . ***this activity can be used with a small group of children or the whole group-it can also be done with only some letters of the alphabet if you are only focusing on certain letters. My children enjoy looking for the letters in their names at the beginning of the year-you could mix-up the lower case letters on the floor and let the "special helper" re-build his/her name with the lower case letters matching it to the one on the board. I have had my children build their name in the pocket chart when they come in the room using the felt letters-they love doing this for check in!
Before and After: (letter recognition, letter order)
Place your letters (or numbers) on the floor. Pick one to place on the board. Ask the children: Which letter comes BEFORE this letter? Have a child find the correct letter and put in the right place on the board. Then ask: Which letter come AFTER this letter? Do this several times to reinforce the vocabulary: before and after. A twist on this would be to hold up a letter and let the kids "shout" out if the letter comes before or after the one on the board. This game can also be played using sequencing pictures from a story to help with re-telling and sequencing skills.
Peek-a-Boo Alphabet: (visual discrimination, uppercase and lower case letters)
Prepare for this game by randomly placing five uppercase and their matching lowercase letters in rows on the flannelboard. Cover each letter with a plain felt square. Have the children take turns lifting a square, saying the name of the hidden letter and then lifting another square to find the matching lowercase letter. If the letters match, they are left uncovered. If the letters don't match, they are covered again. This is a great game to introduce at group and then place in a center for partners to play! Circle of letters: (visual discrimination, verbal and thinking skills) Place a large circle of felt on the board. Place several letter cutouts outside the circle and a few in... Have a rule in mind for this...example: the ones in the circle have all straight lines-the ones out of the circle have curves. Ask the children: Are any letters alike in some way? How are they alike? Do they have round parts? Do they have straight parts? As the children answer and start to figure out the rule have some come up and place more letters in the correct area according to the rule.
Who makes that sound?: (auditory listening skills-phonics) Place letters on the board that you want to review. Go thru all the names/sounds for each letter. Tell the kids that the letters are going to try to "trick them". They are going to say their sound and the kids have to say which letter makes that sound. If they get it right-remove the letter from the board...wrong-keep the letter up so that you can do it again. My kids love to play this game! They love to get all the letters off the board the first time-what a challenge!!! Nursery Rhymes: (phonemic awareness, re-telling skills, vocabulary) Use your felt board to tell the children Nursery Rhymes-these are great for Phonemic awareness, re-telling/sequencing and building vocabulary. After using the felt in group time-put the pieces out in a re-telling/sequencing and building vocabulary. After using the felt in group time-put the pieces out in a re-telling center and let them re-tell the rhyme. You could even add the printed rhymes and/or books or music for the kids to use.
Comprehension Activities: Look Out! (sequencing actions/cause and effect) Read aloud the book: Look Out, Bird! and talk with the children about how one animal's action caused another action. Then, place six felt animals (do not have to be the same ones from the story) on the board. Let the children help make up a story about animal actions while you sequence the felt animals. The children enjoy the imaginative play that they will LOVE doing this in a center and could WRITE their own stories! You can also use this to create a class story book...how cool!
Rainbow Colors: (Sequencing colors, listening, oral language)
Teach the children this song (or any other you already know) tune: Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star... Rain and sunshine, In the sky, Make a rainbow, Way up high, Colors purple, blue and green, Yellow orange and red are seen. Rainbow smiling way up high, When I look up in the sky. Have felt in the right colors to place on the board in order as you sing. After they have learned the song and can sequence the colors in the song order this can be placed in a pocket chart for them to match the felt pieces to the right color WORD!
Not Last Night But the Night Before... (sequencing, listening, oral language)
I like to use the book: Knock, Knock with this activity.... You can use any six felt pieces you want with this activity. Spread your pieces out for the children to see. Teach the children this rhyme: Not last night but the night before, Three funny things came knocking at my door. "Knock, knock, knock" Went the ______ and the ______ and the ______!
Choose a child to arrange the felt pieces on the board in the sequence of "what came knocking." After they have done this in a group, you can easily move this activity to a writing center and let them draw and label the things that came knocking for their own story...Makes a fun class book!
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