Tuesday, January 10, 2017

FLANNEL BOARD STORIES

Somebody recently commented that flannel boards were old-fashion and out of style. The world has changed, but let me tell you something – CHILDREN STILL ENJOY FLANNEL BOARDS! They are a great tool for telling stories, finger plays, and songs. They are also perfect as a story telling center so children can practice retelling stories.

Here are a few simple flannel boards you can make for your classroom.
                                  
Pizza Box
Glue felt on the inside lid of a pizza box or school box. Store puppets for stories and songs right in the box.

File Folder
Staple the sides of a file folder and glue felt to one side. Store pieces in the pocket.
                           
Board Game
Glue felt or flannel to an old board game. It’s easy to fold up and store.

Bulletin Board
Cover a section of a bulletin board with felt. Staple colorful fabric to the top and then drape on the sides to make stage curtains.

Story Pieces
Cut figures out of felt and add details with wiggly eyes, yarn, or fabric pens.
Hint! Add Velcro (loop side) to the back to make pieces stick better.
                    
Cut paper figures from magazines, children’s drawings, or photos. Back with a piece of Velcro.


Here's one of my favorite flannel board stories.  It's good for colors, rhyming, and sequencing.
THE KITTENS’ MITTENS

Materials: felt (brown, white, black, red, blue, green, orange, purple, and yellow), flannel board

Directions: Cut small mittens from the felt. You will need two of each color. Place the mittens on the flannel board as you tell the story below.
                                              
The three little kittens lost their mittens, their brand new mittens of blue.
Let’s help the kittens look for their mittens so they won’t go, “Boo hoo!”
We found some mittens just right for kittens by the bedroom light.
“Boo hoo, the mittens are not the right mittens for the are colored white.”
(Place white mittens on the flannel board.)
We found some mittens just right for kittens in our school backpack.
“Boo hoo, the mittens are not the right mittens for they are colored black.”
(Put up the black mittens.)
We found some mittens just right for kittens in the washing machine.
“Boo hoo, the mittens are not the right mittens for they are colored green.”
(Time for the green mittens.)
We found some mittens just right for kittens by the puppet clown.
“Boo hoo, the mittens are not the right mittens for they are colored brown.”
(Now the brown mittens.)
We found some mittens just right for kittens under baby’s bed.
“Boo hoo, the mittens are not the right mittens for they are colored red.”
(Put up the red mittens.)
We found some mittens just right for kittens by the crayon that’s orange.
“Boo hoo, the mittens are not the right mittens for they are colored orange.”
(Orange mittens)
We found some mittens just right for kittens by a box of Jello.
“Boo hoo, the mittens are not the right mittens for they are colored yellow.”
(Yellow mittens)
We found some mittens just right for kittens by the maple syruple.
“Boo hoo, the mittens are not the right mittens for they are colored purple.”
(Purple mittens)
We found some mittens just right for kittens in a tennis shoe.
“Hooray, the mittens are just the right mittens for they are colored blue!”
(Blue mittens)

Hint! After children have heard the story several times, encourage them to fill in the missing color word. You could also pass the mittens out to the children and let them hold up mittens at the appropriate time in the story.

*Hide mittens around the classroom for the children to find.  Ask each child to find one mitten and then match it up with a classmate who has the same color of mitten.

*Sing the song about “The Three Little Kittens” and then let the children act out the song. Choose one child to be the mother and three others to get down on all fours and pretend to be the kittens.

Download the story here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1SnEagA4jljN2NWVWJwM19ENDQ/view?usp=sharing