Learning with Felt

Every week we take Catori to a fun class at the library.  She absolutely loves it and gets super pumped to go and check out new books, see her teachers and get a chance to be social with other small children her age.  It has been fun for both my husband and I to go with her and see her become more and more independent as the weeks go by and just how excited she gets when they are standing up to sing and jump to her favorite song.  One of Catori's favorite parts of the class is at the end when the kids are free to look at books, play with the puppet or use the felt board with colorful shapes.  It finally got to a point where it wasn't so easy to get her to leave anymore because she just had to play with the felt board a little longer.  That's when the light bulb went off!  If she is this focused and entertained by a simple felt board, then I'm thinking we need to find a way to have one at home for her.  Luckily, good ole Aunt Lori had  recently gifted my daughter with a really cool wooden art easel she had found at a garage sale and it provided the perfect set up for a felt board.  I'll happily admit this has been one of the easiest projects I've done and one of the most fun.  Oh, and not to mention.. super cheap!  One sheet of felt from Michael's is around .29 cents and the large 3x3 sheet of black felt was $3.99.  Love it! 
We started off with basic shapes in various colors like they have at the library so we could sing the fun little song we've learned that goes with them.  So of course it only made sense to make the alphabet and numbers next.  It's an awesome tool and way to teach letters, basic words, name spelling, numbers and even arithmetic.  Using this board and different activities will really help prepare her for Pre-K and I'm all about finding fun to new ways to learn and get her excited about education.

Now I cut all of these free hand because I don't have the patience to trace them all out with stencil, but I'm sure some are available if needed.  I personally prefer a more natural hand made look though, just seems to make it a little more original and personal.  There was no rhyme or reason to our color scheme other than we included 3 (yes, I said three) different shades of pink because it is her most favorite color.  But we had all this felt left...so I figured I might as well use it and started coming up with some themes I thought might be fun and helpful.

Weather! This will be a cool way for us to talk about the weather each day and allow her to learn the different symbols and how you can use more than one to describe what is happening outside.  Some other ideas you can use other than what we did below are a lightening bolt, wind or tornado perhaps.

 

Kite for a WINDY day

After a storm RAINBOW

Snowflakes & snowman can only mean SNOW

Bedtime..MOON & STARS



A gloomy CLOUDY & RAINY day

Only PARTLY SUNNY or is it PARTLY CLOUDY

 

 

Flowers were a definite must.  We all absolutely love spending time outside and observing the different flowers with their amazing shapes and colors.  It's also a great way to discuss God's creation and all the beautiful things he has given us in nature.  I made the flowers into three pieces so Catori can decide how many leaves each flower will get and where to put them on stem.  It allows her a little more independence and creativity when designing her flowers.  There are so so many different looks you could do with flowers, the possibilities are endless!

Food seemed to be the next natural progression.  Although trying to focus on more fruits and veggies to reiterate the idea of healthy eating, there's no way we could leave out our favorite treat... ice cream! The food theme was a fun one and has so many more possibilities we could add to this one.

 

Clothes. Everybody needs them and everybody has them. Or it could be my time spent working in the fashion/apparel industry that inspired this one.  However it may go, I thought this one would be fun.  As the seasons change we can add different pieces and styles.  Another idea would be to have different sizes and items for all the different people in your family: dad, mom, big sister, baby, etc.

 

 

 

Faces and hair.  So this one was not as easy for me and no matter how many times I attempted to make it simple, it just wasn't.  I was completely freaked out by the first draft faces. (I'll probably have nightmares of felt faces chasing me..yes, that bad HA)  But after 3 or 4 tries I think I finally came up with something that is slightly more silly than scary. Hopefully.  hehe

I'll try to keep the blog updated with more themes and ideas as time goes on and seasons change. 
Here are some other felt themes and ideas you might want to create.  Enjoy!

*Holiday Themes ~ 4th of July, Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, Valentines, etc
*Sweets ~ candy, lollipops, donuts, pastries, etc
*Landscape ~ depending on where you live you can create mountains, lakes, city scene, etc
*Activities ~ beach/pool bag, sports, etc
*Under the Sea ~ under water fish, plants, mammals, mermaids, etc
*Animals ~ zoo animals, forest animals, barn animals, etc