Felt board songs, stories, and games can make great additions to any storytime, but there is no reason kids can't enjoy the fun and excitement of a felt board all the time! We set out a felt board in our Children's Room that kids can play with anytime they visit the library. We keep our felt board in a small space near the entrance of the room, but really a felt board could be placed anywhere.
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| Make a Funny Face! |
We have offered a variety of different interactive felt board activities, but the most popular activities allow children to create something unique of their own design. Kids take a lot of pride in their creations and love to talk about them! I've overheard many conversations between kids and caregivers about the monsters, snowmen, and other awesome things kids have created. Kids will often come running into the Children's Room shouting, "I want to make a monster!" or "I want to build a snowman!" Sometimes parents even have trouble getting their kids to leave; they just want to stay at the library and play with our felt board!
For libraries that don't have early literacy centers, a felt board can be an easy, inexpensive way to offer fun activities that encourage imaginative play. We received a generous donation that has allowed us to offer early literacy centers at all of our branches, but before we had our early literacy centers, we were always on the lookout for activities to offer that would encourage families to stay and play. We still are looking for those sorts of activities, of course! At first we just dragged our felt board back and forth for storytime, but eventually we were able to get a second felt board which definitely made things easier. This also made it easier for kids to play with our felt board before and after storytime.
The great thing about a lot of mix & match activities is that you don't have to be a great artist or amazing at drawing to create them. I've never been great at drawing, so I created most of these felt boards by printing and tracing clip art or simple shapes (tracing is also great for creating displays and is a good way to "trick" people into thinking you can draw). You can also trace the bottom of containers to get a perfect circle.
Typically our felt boards include things like eyes, mouths, hair, antennas, accessories,
buttons, etc. that come in a variety of different colors and sizes. Inevitably some of the small pieces get lost, but they are fairly easy to replace. Placing a container near the felt board to keep extra pieces in can make it easier to keep track of the small pieces. Just be prepared for your container to occasionally be picked up and carried around the room by little hands!
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| Build a Robot! |
I particularly like offering mix & match felt boards that consist mostly of simple shapes because it really encourages kids to think outside the box; I'm always amazed at how they use felt pieces in very creative ways that would never have occurred to me. And of course it always brightens my day when a child gleefully tells me about what they have created!
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| Do You Want to Build a Snowman? |
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You can also make special felt boards that you put out for a very limited time to celebrate a special day or that you create just for a big program. We created a R2-D2 felt board for Star Wars Reads Day, and we will definitely bring it back out on May 4th for Star Wars Day! The emphasis here is on the process; it doesn't need to look exactly like the real R2-D2.
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| Mix & Match and design your own R2-D2! |
Mix & match felt boards are awesome, but of course there are plenty of other felt board activities you can offer as well. Activities focusing on letter knowledge, numbers, patterns, colors, shapes, etc. can be a great way to help kids learn about these concepts in a fun, hands-on way. The most important thing is that your felt boards are interactive and encourage PLAY!
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