felt board

Button Practise

felt game button learning

 

Little fingers need practise at fine motor skills! Instead of getting frustrated when your child wants to do up their own buttons (probably at the same time you want to hurry them up and go somewhere!) give them opportunities to practise with this simple teaching tool.

Supplies:  Felt - one large piece + scrap felt for flowers, needle & thread, scissors, buttons


Create a design your child will enjoy. momstown used flowers but it could be balloons or trains or dinosaurs – a theme that will catch your child’s interest. Once you’ve confirmed your design cut out the shapes to be buttoned (ie: flowers). Then sew the buttons onto the large piece of felt allowing for enough space between the shapes to go on. Cut a slit in each shape big enough for the button to go through. Sew on other elements to give the design some clues  (like the flower stems).

file folder game felt buttons


Next – test it out to make sure the buttons work (not too hard!), if it’s too tricky cut the slit larger in your shapes. We want to encourage the kids, not discourage them!

 

 

Posted by momstown mama on 03/15/2011 - 21:11
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How to make a felt board

A felt board is a great resource to have on hand for almost anything. Even the youngest kids can be entertained while putting things on and pulling things off of the felt board. You can make the felt board in any size, and even make a small travel felt board to take along in the car. Here are the steps to make your own felt board.

 

alphabet felt board activity

 

1. Choose a sturdy piece of cardboard or wood in the size that you would like.

2. Purchase felt from a fabric store or a craft store. I used white and black and made the felt board dual colours for each side.

3. Purchase a spray adhesive, such as Super77 by Scotch.

4. Spray the adhesive onto the cardborad or wood and attache felt smoothly on top. Flip the board over and repeat with the other felt colour.

 

It's not complicated at all and takes only about 15 minutes. Let it dry overnight before using! You can use the felt board to tell stories, learning activities, and much more!

 

felt board activity

 

You can also make a smaller felt board to use for games like this one we made to teach small, medium and large. A perfact travel size for the car or appointments if this shoebox felt board made to play with houses. Probably more fun than you ever thought possible from felt!

Posted by momstown mama on 03/15/2011 - 00:52
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Small, Medium, Large (school style)

Kids learn about size in context and the more you work with them with examples, the more they understand. Here's a simple way to work with your kids on sorting by size. These types of simple parent resources are terrific and many momstown chapters have a parent 'make and take' night to create these tools to take home and work with your child.

 

We created several school related items using felt for our felt board (see our blog here for creating your own felt board). We practiced sorting the different choices. You could use this for any theme and you could create a variety of objects. We used buses, apples, crayons, and chalkboards for "back to school".

 

All you need is a variety of felt, scissors and a theme (school, shapes... etc).

felt

Posted by momstown mama on 03/13/2011 - 20:38
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Felt house play

This morning, we created our own personal felt boards out of old shoeboxes. We kept them fairly simple and glued on grass and a sky. The kids played with different felt shapes to create homes on their felt boards.felt house play

What you need:

old shoebox

glue

felt (in any colour)

shapes from felt

Just glue the sky and the grass down and you have a very versatile felt board that can even travel in the car with you! You can create an assortment of felt pieces that can go with the board (animals, people, trees, etc....) and the best part- it has a lid!

Posted by Anonymous on 11/14/2010 - 07:37
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