Preschool Activities: Felt Board Play (Make Your Own!)
When my kids were little, I made a felt board that we used almost daily for years!
- The kids used it for creative play.
- Free play (shapes)
- We used it for literacy props to tell and have the kids retell stories (I remember we did Billy Goats Gruff and Little Red Riding Hood). Here’s a post where we did The Emperor’s New Clothes.
- I set out various math activities.
- We used it for science (like building the parts of a flower down lower in the post)
- We used it for “dress up” bears.
- You can use patches or laminated pictures with a felt board just tape a piece of sandpaper or Velcro on the back.
And as you can see from the pictures below we used patches as well as various felt cut-outs.
How to Make a Felt Board:
I know we have a lot of do-it-yourself parents, so I thought I would share how we made ours once again:
I bought a large piece of felt from a fabric store and two canvas panels for painting. I put three holes across the top of the canvases and then put a pipe cleaner through the holes to hold them together. I taped the ends of the pipe cleaner down. Then I taped the felt into place (to keep it firm while I sewed it all together). I sewed the two pieces together on the back and then sewed the sides together as shown.
I liked the way the stitch looked on the finished project so I took a picture of how I did it. I’m sure there’s a name for that stitch, but I don’t know it! Each stitch I poked the needle down through the fabric, then brought the needle through the loop before pulling taunt.
I used to set up our art table once a week with various activities under a theme. For example, here was the set up one week when we did oceans. As you can see, I set out books, plastic animals and matching cards, games, puzzles, a do-a-dot activities with Cheerios. (I also pulled out stuffed animals, puppets… and and anything else I could think of that went with that theme.) Other theme tables were on bears or princesses or monsters & dragons, oceans, farms, fire engines/safety, .. anything that I could think of!
I also usually had something set up with our felt board. That week I set up “bubble” numbers. The kids had to put the numbers in the right order… and I obviously made some felt ocean creatures too! 😉
Felt Play: Three Little Pigs
Felt Play: Holiday Scenes
Do you recognize the story 5 Little Pumpkins in the felt story board below?! My kids loved that book!
I can’t tell you how many trips our “dress up” bears went on! They made wonderful “low mess” activities to keep the kids entertained in the car or on planes! In that case, though we didn’t pack our large felt board, we just brought a smaller piece of felt. 🙂
Other related posts you might be interested in:
- Our Jack and the Beanstalk Activities
- Preschool at Home: Activities you can do with your 2-4 Year Olds, Fine Motor Skills
- Preschool at Home: Learning Letters
- Preschool at Home: Alphabet Activities
- Preschool at Home: Handwriting
- Preschool at Home: Science for 2-4 Year Olds
- Preschool Montessori: Vertebrate and Invertebrate Study and Free Cards
- Preschool at Home: A Few Math Ideas for the 2 1/2-3 year old crowd
- Preschool Math Activities (K4) Montessori Math and More
- Preschool at Home: Lapbooks
- You might also be interested in the post: Homeschool Preschool Year in Review which was a recap of many of our preschool activities this past year.
- Preschool Geography: Activities for learning about where we live in the world, Montessori world map work and more
- Preschool Geography: Maps and More
- Animals and Their Groups – Sorting Cards
- The Seven Continents and World Landmarks
- Various Free Montessori 3-Part Cards
- Teach Your Child to Read for fun ideas that help your child learn to read!
See you again soon here or over at our Homeschool Den Facebook Page. And, don’t forget to Subscribe to our Homeschool Den Newsletter! ~Liesl and the kids
