storytime katie

Originally, I found this flannelboard on Pinterest, which I am fast becoming majorly addicted to. However, the original templates were from Serving Pink Lemonade; toolbox here and tools here.

Here’s my rendition:

Pretty much just copied this from the template. I did wind up using felt letters stickers for the lettering though. Michaels now has stickers in felt, which makes my life way easier!

I have a plan to use this flannel as a conversation starter and matching game. I do need to create a piece of wood for the saw, if I do use it as a matching game. [Edited: In the new picture, you can see my piece of wood that looks like bacon.] I think that the kids will probably really enjoy this, and I certainly enjoyed making it.

It’s another inspired by Flannel Friday post today. This time, I took a page out of Cate at Storytiming’s book and recreated her version of “Ouch.”

I am particularly in love with the adorable hedgehog and his home.

And I am also partial to raccoon. As for the goat in the story, I am planning on using a goat puppet to eat the flannel pieces off of hedgehog. I am trying to use more interactive flannels this fall, and this one was just perfect for a “fall animals” theme.

Tracey has today’s round-up; check her blog for more info later on!

Inspired by Katie at Story Time Secrets, I made my own set of family members to do the “Knock Knock” flannel she showed us here. (I used the clipart that Katie linked from Kizclub.)

The story goes as such:

Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Grandma Jennie.
All the other relatives show up and then:
Knock, knock
Who’s there?
Pizza! Party!

I’m sure the kids will be tickled pink. I hope the appreciate the little details in this board though.

Shoelaces! I sewed this week.

And painted ducks.

And managed to bend a paperclip to make Grandma’s glasses!

I’m super excited to use this board in storytime this fall and even more excited to be back doing some Flannel Friday posts! Cate is hosting this week, so be sure to stop by for the round-up!

[Check back later for the round-up because I’m hosting this week!]

I have no idea where this set came from — it was here when I started working at the library, but somehow, we lost two of the kittens. I wound up remaking it from the original (and the cat clip-art from DLTK’s farm pack) because nothing matched. It drove me CRAZY. So, I do not have a pattern for this one, but it was fairly easy to make (and would probably be SUPER easy to find some clip art)!

Obviously, this uses the traditional rhyme:

Three little kittens,
They lost their mittens,
And they began to cry,
Oh, mother dear,
We sadly fear
Our mittens we have lost.
What! Lost your mittens,
You naughty kittens!
Then you shall have no pie.
Mee-ow, mee-ow, mee-ow, mee-ow.
You shall have no pie.

The three little kittens,
They found their mittens,
And they began to cry,
Oh, mother dear,
See here, see here,
Our mittens we have found.
What! Found your mittens,
You darling kittens!
Then you shall have some pie.
Mee-ow, mee-ow, mee-ow, mee-ow.
You shall have some pie.

(I only go to the second verse; I know there are more — you could make the mittens double sided so that they could get soiled and then clean all over again!)

[Edited: Ultimately, I used pipe cleaners for the legs and puffy paint for the lettering. And I’ve changed the picture, but have left the text as it originally was.]

I am a huge GIANT fan of Mo Willems. I love every single one of his books, but mostly, I must pledge my undying love for the pigeon books! Obviously if you love a book that much, you eventually want to make a flannelboard out of it. (Templates do not exist. I think I used a coloring page as my guidelines.)

So, I had this great idea to make two pigeons — one calm and one melting-down — and then however many times the audience has an opportunity to say “no!” to this pigeon, to make a bubble with the word “NO!” on it. Then, I could pass out the bubbles and this flannel could become participatory.

Then, I hit a minor roadblock. I tried felt for the pigeon’s feet and I tried ribbon and neither looked right. I like the idea of pipe cleaners, but haven’t actually tried it.

And then, I absolutely do NOT want to individually letter all the word bubbles. I suppose I could just scrap the ones I made out of felt and print out bubbles, laminate, and use sticky back felt.

#Flannelfriday friends, any suggestions?

This week, I did a flannel from Melissa at Mel’s Desk! She did this super cute shape game and I repeated it with my 3-7 year old storytime group.

To start, I had all the shapes turned over, so that they were just shapes. (The kite string and popsicle stick just got tucked under their pieces.) Then, I asked the kids what they thought the shapes could be if they were summer items. My kids guessed the sun, the ice cream cone, and the kite without prompting. The beach towel and popsicle were easier after a bit of discussion — ie “What do we need to go to the beach?”

The pinwheel STUMPED them. I put all four triangles up and finally someone said, “FIREWORKS!” I congratulated them (because we had just read a book with fireworks in it, and my little girl was trying to draw connections between what we read and what we did on the board, and she’s only three!) and then I moved on.

All in all, this was a GREAT flannel, and one that the kids enjoyed and I felt made me a better librarian (for having a discussion with them instead of just saying a rhyme)!

And we’re back at Mel’s Desk this week for the round-up! Look for it there!

This week’s flannelboard was from last January when I did “Bears” storytime. Since this was before Flannel Friday was created, I didn’t save the clipart files that I found for this one. Pretty sure that I just googled “teddy bear” and “bed” and went from there.

“Ten Teddy Bears Sleeping in the Bed”
Ten little teddy bears sleeping in the bed,
Five at the foot and five at the head.
One little teddy said, “This bed is TOO full!”
So he grabbed the blanket and started to pull.
He pulled and he pulled and he pulled some more,
Until two little teddies went BOOM to the floor!
(Make pulling motions with PULL and clap with the BOOM)

(Count down until…)

One little teddy bear sleeping in the bed,
Zero at the foot and one at the head.
This little teddy said, “This is not right!
I don’t want to sleep alone tonight!”

So…
One little teddy bear sleeping in the bed,
Zero at the foot and one at the head.
This teddy said, “This bed is NOT full!”
So he put out his paw and started to pull.
He pulled and he pulled and he pulled some more,
Until four little teddies climbed up from the floor!

(Count up until…)

Ten little teddy bears sleeping in the bed,
Five at the foot and five at the head.
One little teddy said, “This is JUST right!”
So ten little teddy bears said, “Good Night!”
Susan Pflug, Copyright 1990
Credit: I found this rhyme here: SurLaLune Storytime.

Enjoy!

This is one that Mollie at Miss Mollie’s Storytime Fun did during one of the first weeks of Flannel Friday. I immediately bookmarked it because I’ve got a counting storytime coming up this summer, where this will be perfect!

For the ladybug, I just blew up Mollie’s picture and used that as a straight template. And for the numbers, I used our Ellison die-cut machine for the first time with felt! It worked pretty good as far as I’m concerned. The only number I had to correct out of the machine was the six. (Also, our Ellison is pretty old — it’s the LetterMachine XL. I don’t know how cutting felt would work on any other Ellison so I wanted to make sure you knew which one I had.)

Here’s the rhyme from Mollie:

“Pretty Ladybug” (Sung to: “The Muffin Man”)
Ladybug has 1 black spot,
1 black spot, 1 black spot;
Ladybug has 1 black spot,
Pretty ladybug!
Continue until there are 6 spots.
— Which she got from PreschoolEducation.com

See you guys next week for another #flannelfriday!

[I am hosting Flannel Friday this week, so check back later today for the round-up post!]

Do you know how hard it is to plan a storytime around the color purple? It’s ridiculous! And to boot, my favorite book about purple — “Harold and the Purple Crayon” naturally — was a wee bit smaller than I remembered it. Of course, I was also smaller back then!

So I set to working on making it into a flannelboard.

I decided that the best way to do this was by trying to simulate the lines that Harold draws and to kind of kid-up the pieces so that they looked like they could be drawn with a crayon. (Also, it meant I didn’t have to be perfect since Harold was the one drawing!)

I started by taping down the clip art, painting around piece, waiting for the paint to dry, and cutting the piece out while making sure to leave a border of purple paint.

You can see just how gloppy I put on the paint in this picture:

A picture of one of the pieces of felt. I think I used about four sheets of white felt. I should have kept better track of that!

And my very messy hand after painting!

And finally….the finished set!

When I was planning for this flannel, I had a co-worker purchase felt by the yard at Joann’s so that I had a piece of white felt to cover the board. It made the story much more authentic than our normal red background.

I also took some liberties with the book. Harold’s hot air balloon become a regular balloon. I skipped having a cityscape and just told that part of the story. I cut his nine types of pie down to four, etc.

This was the best part of purple storytime (post coming Monday, I swear!), and I cannot wait to use it again!

If you want to try and make Harold, here’s my clip art file: Harold Clip Art. And if you don’t have access to the book, I can email you my sheet, so that I’m not breaking copyright on the blog. 😀