Playing: Flannel Activities
Playing
Children learn about their world thorough different kinds of play. Play helps children express themselves, put thoughts into words, and think symbolically so they understand that spoken and written words can stand for real objects and experiences.
Flannel Stories
Flannel or felt stories are a fun and inexpensive way to encourage your child’s play. Here are just a few benefits from using flannel stories:
- Shape and color recognition
- Counting and other early math skills
- Sensory input from fabric textures
- Story retelling develops narrative skills
- Older preschoolers develop fine motor skills from helping cut and manipulate the felt pieces
Tips
- Start with easy to cut shapes and see what they can make (like our Blue Square House)!
- Use old fabric scraps to decorate or replace felt
- Cover a large piece of cardboard with felt to make a board
- Stick flannel pieces to the side or cushion of a couch
- Play hide-and-seek by putting something behind one of your flannel pieces and have your child find it (like this “Little Frog” flannel)
See it in Action
With virtual storytime including many flannel activities, we’re in the process of uploading short videos of flannel activities to the Plano Public Library YouTube channel! You can watch these in one playlist, or based on these categories (some may not be available yet as we are still in the process of editing and uploading – subscribe to our channel for notification!):
- Early Literacy Flannels playlist
- Animals Flannels
- Farm Flannels
- Pets Flannels
- Seasons Flannels
Here is one of our favorite flannels, “Blue Square House,” and instructions for you and your child to make your own!
- Place all of your flannel pieces on the table
- Using the marker, draw a square on the piece of blue felt
- The square will be the house, so it should be large enough to fit a door piece and a roof piece
- Cut out the square of blue felt
- Draw a small rectangle on the green piece of felt
- This will be your house’s door
- Cut out the rectangle of green felt
- Draw a triangle on the red felt
- This will be your house’s roof
- Cut out the triangle of red felt
- Draw a circle on the orange felt
- This will be your sun
- Cut out the circle of orange felt
- Draw a star on the yellow felt
- This will be your star
- Cut out the star of yellow felt
- Draw a white crescent
- This will be your crescent moon
- Cut out the crescent of white felt
- Assemble your pieces!
I live inside a BLUE square house,
With a GREEN rectangle door.
It has a RED triangle roof,
But look outside there’s more.
In the morning when I wake up,
The sun is in the sky.
A bright and shining ORANGE circle,
Way up high.
And when it’s time to go to bed,
There’s a single YELLOW star,
Beside a big WHITE crescent moon.
Looking down from so, so far.
Shapes and colors
Come with me
Let’s count how many
We can see…
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
