Felt Advent Calendar and Number Recognition

We all know the traditional Advent Calendars filled with a chocolate a day leading up to Christmas. 25 days of sweets! Recently, there seems to be many variations to the original calendar for both children and adults. This year, I made one for my teenage son who claims his father eats all the chips in our home (actually, this is true)!

This is an "Advent" Calendar made with felt ornaments that could be placed out throughout December in any Early Childhood Environment and helps foster number recognition.

Alternatively, the ornaments could be matching which would help with transitioning out of Circle Time.

So easy to make and fun to interact with!

Happy Holidays

Preschool Math Concepts and the Felt Board

Felt pieces on a flannel board provide young children visual cues for basic math. Many songs, poems and stories  teach math concepts such as number recognition, counting, matching as well as the introduction of adding and subtracting. By including mathematical concepts within the telling of a story or poem,  it will foster cognitive development within the young audience members.

Every time we have a felt story with numbers, we can ask children to count along, or ask open ended questions to encourage subtraction and addition. For example, "If I have five ladybugs all together, and one is on the felt board, how many are in my bag?" These type questions stimulate the minds of older preschool children.

There are so many felt stories and preschool songs with the number five. Next time you are telling the story, try including some math questions to challenge the children's minds: 

"If I have two on the board, and three in my bag, how many felt pieces do I have all together?' 

"I have four on the board, I will take one away, so how many will be left?" 

"Two felts make a pair. We have four all together, so how many pairs do we have?" 

And so on, and so on...

Online Early Childhood Workshops with Circle of Ideas

Spring Flower Felt Board Activities

To the Tune of Farmer in the Dell 

Springtime is finally here, oh springtime is finally here

Flowers come this time of year

Springtime is finally here. 

Springtime is finally here.

Springtime is finally here, oh springtime is finally here

The bees are buzzing, can you hear

Springtime is finally here. 

Use these Flower Felts for Transitioning out of Circle Time

Other felt board activities, such as matching or sequencing, work particularly well with transitions and of course language development. In larger groups, in order to allow every child an opportunity to visit the felt board, you could ask children to bring pieces to the board, and then ask children to remove the pieces. In the flower example, 9 children bring a flower to the board to place in the right sequence, and 9 children remove one flower. But, with smaller groups, the children could simply take the pieces off. For example, "Jenny, could you please come to the board and find me the biggest purple flower?". When Jenny successfully completes this request, the teacher can ask the group, "Is she right? Let's give her a clap. Hooray!" Followed by, "Jenny you can go and wash your hands". The amount of time this takes with each child, will allow for a gradual transition.

Matching and Sequencing Flowers

Preschool children can learn basic math concepts with these visual felt flowers. In this activity, children can be provided a flower to bring to the felt board. This hands on activity works well for circle time management. When the children bring the flower to the board, they can find which color it matches as well as the order of size. The Educator will then promote language development by emphasizing the words bigger and biggest, smaller and smallest, while asking children to repeat the words together. 

Online Early Childhood Workshops with Circle of Ideas

Using the Felt Board for Circle Time Transition

What is Circle Time Transition? 

In Early Childhood programs, young children participate in circle time. Circle time incorporates a variety of teacher directed activities. It is a time for children to build skills in listening, group participation, sharing ideas, learning and having fun.

The felt board offers Educators opportunities to provide children visual props to stories, songs, and games which teach concepts, such as matching or counting.

Another benefit of the felt board is to help with transitions. When circle or group time is finished, it is best for children to leave circle one by one into the next area. Often eating or going outside is the next activity after circle time. Circle time provides an opportunity for the other Educators to clean up and prepare for the upcoming schedule, and once ready, the children can move to washing their hands or getting ready for outside. If all the children leave the circle at once, and rush to the washroom or cubby room, it leads to problematic situations. So, a gradual transition out of circle time works best for classroom management.

Any pieces on the felt board can be used for transitions, simply by asking questions to the children. For instance, "Can you find me the bear?"

Other felt board activities, such as matching or sequencing, work particularly well with transitions and of course language development. In larger groups, in order to allow every child an opportunity to visit the felt board, you could ask children to bring pieces to the board, and then ask children to remove the pieces. In the flower example, 9 children bring a flower to the board to place in the right sequence, and 9 children remove one flower. But, with smaller groups, the children could simply take the pieces off. For example, "Jenny, could you please come to the board and find me the biggest purple flower?". When Jenny successfully completes this request, the teacher can ask the group, "Is she right? Let's give her a clap. Hooray!" Followed by, "Jenny you can go and wash your hands". The amount of time this takes with each child, will allow for a gradual transition.

Further Reading: 

Circle Time Basics Workshop

All About Felt Stories (Flannel Board)



Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

Early childhood educators have been using felt stories (flannel board stories) for years. The felt pieces will sit upright onto felt boards or easels, thus allowing caregivers to provide colourful and vibrant visual aides to a group of preschoolers. In addition, young children enjoy playing with felts themselves. Felt pieces can be used for telling a story or poem, as a visual addition to lyrics of a song, to help teach concepts, or utilize as a transition out of group circle.

The Benefits of Using Felts in Early Childhood Settings

Felt material is beneficial to all young children, but in particular is useful for children who need extra attention visually. Children who have speech delays benefit with large visual pieces to view as the words are being spoken, as with children whose language being spoken is not their first language learnt at home.

Furthermore, felt boards can help children who are hearing impaired as the pieces are easy to see. At a group circle, the teacher/storyteller can give felt pieces out to the children to bring to the board and contribute, thus involving children who otherwise might be easily distracted and/or disruptive to the teacher led activities. The benefits of this alternative way of storytelling and teaching are plentiful.

Felt Stories and Poems

One of the favourite ways to use felt boards is to tell a story with the felt pieces. Stories and poems that have limited pieces or that involve pieces coming off and on to a board work the best. When there are too many felts needed to effectively tell the story, the board can become too busy and difficult for the storyteller to manage effectively. Some suggestions of books that transfer well to felt stories are Eric Carle's Brown Bear, Brown Bear and The Very Hungry Caterpillar, The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister and I Know and Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly.

In addition, using short poems are a wonderful way of displaying the felts onto a board for the children to enjoy.

Felts With Songs

Songs can be enjoyed with the visual support of felts. The children can listen to music on CD or join in with the teacher to sing. Some great songs that correlate well to felts are fingerplay songs which have the number five in the title. Five is a nice number of felts to view on a board! Plus, we have five fingers to use for extra visualization and child engagement, such as:
 Felt Glove: Five Little Monkeys Swinging on the Tree

• Five Little Ducks
• Five Green and Speckled Frogs
• Five Little Monkeys

Using Felts to Teach Concepts

Felt pieces are a wonderful way to teach children concepts, such as color and number recognition, sizing and matching to name a few. By allowing the children to bring the felts to the boards they are learning with hands-on experiences. Some ideas for this type of learning involvement are matching winter mittens, correlating colour cars to colour garages, placing autumn leaves in the right order from small, medium and large, and matching numbered raindrops to the right numbers on an umbrella.

Felt Pieces and Transition

Lastly, felt pieces on the board can facilitate children transitioning out of circle. In Early Childhood programs, such as preschool and daycare, it is best for children to leave the group in a slow transition, to aid with structure and pace. For instance, if all the children leave the carpet area and rush to the washroom to wash their hands before snack, it potentially leads to problems that need to be addressed. Asking children to come to the board one by one helps with transition. An Educator can ask questions, for instance, "can you find me the red car?" followed by, "great, now you can leave to wash your hands".

Felts are fun for children to use, watch and learn from. Felt material is durable and timeless and is a wonderful addition to any early childhood educator's toolbox.

Online Early Childhood Workshops with Circle of Ideas