Felt Board Story Bag

Today is a rainy and gloomy day. Here's a project that can help you make the best of staying inside!

Find a canvas grocery bag to transform into your felt board story bag.



Find a piece of cardboard and cut it down to fit your canvas bag. Use whole sheets and scraps of felt to design a scene for your story bag.

Glue a piece of blue felt (the sky) onto your cardboard. The piece I used was 8 1/2" x 11".



Glue green felt (grass) onto your scene (you can choose a different scene, this is just what I thought would be most useful to me).



Using hot glue, glue your scene/background onto your canvas grocery bag.



You can make animals or objects of any kind to use with your felt board story bag. The possibilities are endless!



You can use the animals you make to sing songs (For example, Six Little Ducks).



The animals you make can be used to help tell a familiar or made up story.

Preschool Printables

Preschool Printables is a great website where you can find teaching resources. Since I think parents are a child's first and most important teacher, this website is for you, too, if you're a parent reading.

Check out the felt board stories on Preschool Printables. Print some off in black and white or in colour and tell one with your child today. Oral language is the foundation of literacy. The more practice your child gets talking, the better they will get with their reading.

More on feelings...

This posting was inspired by this article about colour, happiness and depression: Different Colours Describe Happiness vs Depression

My Many Coloured Days, by Dr. Seuss, is a beautiful book that uses colour to express feelings. By reading and discussing this book with your child, you can help them understand that we all have moods. Our moods can change day to day, and that`s ok.

The book is also a great tool for talking about print awareness. Print awareness is noticing print everywhere.The text is written to reflect the illustrations/moods.

Here are two previous posts I wrote on print awareness.

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign

Point them in the right direction...

I Went Walking

I Went Walking by Sue Williams is a great story for young children. It's rhythm is similar to the classic book Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Eric Carle. It's got lots of rhyme and repetition, which are also essential components of an awesome children's book. Children love using felt boards to tell stories. It gives them something to hold in their hands and encourages participation.

Below are some feltboard pieces I made to use with the the story I Went Walking. I traced the outlines of the animals onto non-fusable interfacing (from Fabricland) using a thin Sharpie marker. I coloured the pieces using pencil crayons. The patterns come from Liz and Dick Wilmes' 2's Experience Felt Board Fun.


I have searched high and low on the internet and I have been unable to find the EXACT feltboard story pattern for you to print. Instead, you can either trace the animals out of the story book or trace farm animals out of a colouring book.




It's handy to have a set of felt board farm animals because they can be used in so many ways. If you don't have time to do this, simply use toys if you have access to a farm set - it will have the same effect. Only you will notice if you don't have the exact pieces that match the story!

Here are a couple of songs I have used with the felt board farm animals I made. I have left the links to the lyrics below the songs.

Old MacDonald Had a Farm
http://www.dltk-teach.com/rhymes/macdonald/mlyrics.htm

We're On Our Way to Grandpa's Farm
http://www.songsforteaching.com/folk/grandpasfarmmarla.php

Are there any other great farm songs readers can add to their repertoire?

It Looked Like Split Milk Felt Board Story

Looking to create a new felt board story for your program or to tell with your own children? It Looked Like Spilt Milk is a great book! It's got a lot of repetition in it. When children repeat the same stories and/or lines in stories they begin to see themselves as readers. This can be very motivating in learning to read. Also, the story is really about a cloud and the different shapes it takes. With summer not far away talking about clouds in the sky could be a great extention activity. Enjoy :)

Follow the link below to access tracers to make your own felt board story. Just trace the designs onto white felt and use a piece of blue felt as the background.

http://www.kizclub.com/storypatterns/spiltmilk.pdf