Flannel Friday Series - Felts3Ways. Fish

I was really excited by the Ohio Library Council's Convention and Expo last October.  The Library Village took part in the Convention by presenting felt board techniques in a poster session.  My piece of the presentation involved showing how to use ONE felt set in each of the three age groups (or 4 in some cases) we serve:  Baby, Toddler, Preschool (and young school age) Story Times.  This technique saves time and money for your department by sharing resources.

The next installment in my series Felts 3 Ways (a-la Iron Chef....oh dear, it might be sushi this time) is on the topic of Fish.  This set will work great for lots of themes such as fish, sharks, ocean, summer, and fractured fairy tales.

First, here is the whole set.  The artwork could not be easier as I traced the pieces right out of the book The Three Little Fish and the Big Bad Shark by Will Grace, Ken Geist, and Julie Gorton.  The felts were outlined in a light marker but then embellished with puffy paint.

For Baby Story Time, we can play peek-a-boo with the baby fish as the mommy fish looks for her baby.  Using the three houses, one baby and the mama fish, we can play hide and seek.  Where is the baby fish?  Oh I see her!  She is in the sandcastle!

Next up for Toddlers, we have a fun rhyme based on 5 Little Monkeys sitting in a Tree:

5 Little Fish swimming in the sea
Teasing Mr Shark "Can't catch me!"
Along comes Mr Shark....SNAP!
Oh No!  Where is he?

And then for Preschool - of course we would use the whole story of the Three Little Fish and the Big Bad Shark.

And the best part is when the shark tries to break the ship house but all of his teeth fall out and he is stuck eating seaweed salad for dinner!

Thanks to Bridget from What is Bridget Reading for hosting Flannel Friday this week.  What is Flannel Friday you might say?  Well, Check out the Flannel Friday BLOG for more.  Or you can check out Flannel Friday on Facebook, and even on Pinterest!  You can also follow Flannel Friday on Twitter using the Hashtag #Flannelstorytime.

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Flannel Friday Series - Felts3Ways! Ducks!

Today was a big day!   Library Village had the fantastic opportunity to present at this year's Ohio Library Council's Convention and Expo.  We created a poster session on how to re-consider felts and bring them back into story time.  We explained various techniques on making felt sets, and showed how to use them in baby, toddler, and preschool story times.  I'll let Kristen blog about the OLC Convention, and of value of felt sets to young children (which is very rich!), but suffice it to say that all three of us are strong advocates for the use of different mediums in story time.  Felt is our favorite medium!

One of the main ideas we presented is how to save time and money by creating ONE felt set that can be used in various ways for different age groups.  We found in our department that we were creating many sets with only one use each.  We all enjoy felting, but this just was not efficient.  With just a small amount of planning our sets became far more versatile, and they still cost far less than store bought sets!  

Just like Iron Chef, this Story Time Ninja (see Storytime Underground for more information about Story time Ninjas) would like to present the first in my series called "Felts 3 Ways."  Today's edition: Ducks!!


Here the the entire set.

Some of the images were inspired by a kit for purchase on Cambridge Educational Toys http://www.cambridgeeducationaltoys.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=173_64_79
In addition, we have created similar sets for our story times before!  See Kristen's Where's Duck felt set post for more on her baby set!  Here is the link to my original Ugly Duckling set for Preschool which is much larger and different from the set here.
Want even more ducks?  We have SEVEN DUCK POSTS for you to see!

NOW, what can you do with this amazing set?

For Babies, you can use these pieces to create an activity to demonstrate for the caregivers called "Where's the Baby Duck?"  Mama calls 'Quack Quack' looking for her baby!  Is he behind the fence?  No?  Is he in the pond?  There's the baby duck!

For Toddlers, what is more fun that the 5 Little Ducks Song?

5 little ducks went out one day
over the hill and far away.
Mama duck said 'quack, quack, quack, quack'
But only 4 little ducks came back.
4 little ducks.....(until you get to no ducks left and then...)

One Mama Duck went out one day,
over the hill and far away
Mama duck said 'quack, quack, quack, quack'
And all 5 of her little ducks came back!

And for Preschool and Early Elementary, here is the Ugly Duckling story.  While the original tale can be embellished and extended with other forest animals, I created only enough felts for a preschool-length story time.  I imagine you could add any other creatures in the original to make it longer for school age story telling.  You could even use the pond, log, and tall grass as more scenery for this story.  Remember the ugly duckling hides himself away in the tall grass by the pond until one day he sees the swans soaring overhead and wishes he was as beautiful as they are.

As an added bonus, I have templates for you.  We created these templates as a handout for the OLC so I thought I would add them here for those of you who couldn't make it this year.

***Please remember that if you use these templates or re-blog about them, credit the original author or get permission for anything but private use. None of the images on the first page are mine to sell.  The second page is just hand drawn shapes and you are free to use those.

And with that, you have "Felts 3 Ways."  I hope you enjoy this series and stay tuned for more!


Special thanks to Kathryn at Fun With Friends at Storytime for hosting this week's Flannel Friday.  If you would like to learn more about Flannel Friday and how you can participate, Click HERE.

Thanks for stopping by!