Felt Boards and Visual Communication

Visual communication is an important element in providing quality care in Early Childhood Education. Young children are learning new words every day. At the same time, Educators may be interacting with children who are learning a second language or children who have cognitive delays in communication. Visual communication helps language development for all children. A message that is being spoken will be sent more easily if it is combined with visual representation. Educators have a variety of ways to send messages visually, such as pictures in book, felts on a felt board, puppets and even hand gestures or signs. 

Learning Baby Signs is a convenient way to add signing to our communication process in Early Childhood Education. Baby Signs® was introduced over twenty years ago by two childhood development experts, Dr. Linda Acredolo and Dr. Susan Goodwyn whereby they extended on the basic knowledge that babies naturally talk with their hands.

For more information: 

Visual Communication with Young Children Workshop

Baby Signs® 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

Let the Children Play---with the Felt Board

This winter at the childcare centre where I have been working, we placed out my matching mitten felt activity, as well as a Christmas Tree to decorate.

The felts on the felt board have been an activity for nearly three weeks now!  We eventually put the Christmas tree away after the holidays. Children who are actively playing and interacting with material are learning through the process.

Online Early Childhood Workshops with Circle of Ideas

Alternative to Plastic Toys? Felt Board Stories

There are many parents and caregivers who have chosen to not have or avoid plastic toys for their children. The reasons vary. For some, it is based on a principle to live a more sustainable lifestyle, to others it is a desire to have material that is more durable and long lasting and still some think that plastic and babies/toddlers should not be combined for safety/health reasons. Regardless of the reason, the goal can be challenging. Moreover, let's face it, the plastic toys are often easier on the wallet. Often the main alternative is wooden toys.

Felt Material is a Great Alternative to Plastic

Another great choice are felt board activities and stories. Felt board stories are not difficult to make by hand. In addition, there are many sites online where they can be purchased, including this one :) Furthermore, there are many ways to create felt boards.

 

Developmental Benefits to Felt Board Stories and Activities

Aside from the fact that felt material is durable, long lasting and soft to handle, playing with felts provides an open ended process fostering creativity and imagination within a child. Felt pieces promote language development and of course, storytelling whatever the form is a wonderful gift for children.

Online Early Childhood Workshops with Circle of Ideas

Felt Board Activities Promote Language Development

Friday afternoon at 5pm, last day of work before holidays, and I am waiting for two young boys (one and two) to be picked up by their parents. It is just me and them left in the room.  I want to keep them busy with a special activity that will engage them while they are waiting. I decide to bring out the teacher's felts and individual felt boards. The ones I choose are printed pieces, not home made ones, which can be more realistic in their images.

One boy is given the animals and the other is given fruit and vegetables. They are so happy. The two year old is using what words he knows to label each piece of felt. He methodically brings out each fruit and vegetable from its bag and places them on top of each other.

Whereas the one year old is choosing a felt piece, showing me each animal felt piece and waiting for animal clarification before placing the felt onto the felt board.

The activity was clearly promoting language development. Both boys were placing the pieces onto the boards with such concentration, the time quickly passed and before we knew it the parents arrived.

Online Early Childhood Workshops with Circle of Ideas

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