Child Care Provider Tip of The Month
Tip For This October 1999: Flannel Board Stories the Easy Way
Do you have trouble creating flannel board story pieces from scratch? Maybe you aren't too handy with a glue gun? Maybe the idea of where to start has you stumped. Well, I have an easy if not necessarily cheap way to create flannel board story pieces or other types of story props.
I don't know about the kids in your day care, but mine have favorite stories. The Mitten is a favorite, or Miss Spider's Tea Party. The less expensive way to do this is to use tracing paper to create patterns of the figures from the book, that you want to make pieces of. Use this pattern to then cut the pieces from felt. Use permanent markers to decorate the pieces.
A better way is to make color copies onto transfer sheets, either at a copy shop or at home with your PC and scanner, of the characters you want for your flannel board story, follow the transfer sheets instructions and iron your images to plain white cotton. Cotton muslin works well for this or recycled old bed sheets. Then use iron on adhiesive from the fabric store to attach these pieces to felt and you have your story pieces. You can also take your images once they are on the cotton and make small pillows or dolls from them to make story props. I can't imagine that there would be copyright concerns as you aren't selling them. And I can't imagine the authors would mind doing this if it helps encourage children to read.
