Felt may be one of the greatest inventions of our time. Kids can always find ways to entertain themselves with it, which is why these fairy tale felt boards are positively perfect. They are great for days home sick or rainy afternoons, and they encourage the growth of your child's reading and story telling skills. And because felt has a natural knack of grabbing onto things, making these felt boards couldn't be easier. So the next time you and your child find yourselves with a particularly dull Wednesday evening or weekend afternoon, and you're looking for a project to pass the time, try this Fairytale Felt Board activity.
What You Need:
- Sheets of felt, in various colors
- Scissors
- Fabric glue
- Piece of cardboard - cut to the size your child would like her background to be (optional)
- Felt tip marker (such as a black Sharpie; optional)
- Magazine clippings, old pictures, etc.
What to Do:
- Start by making a background. If you’re telling the Cinderella story, you might put a castle in the background and a pumpkin patch near the front. For Little Red Riding Hood, for example, your child could put a path through the woods leading to Grandma's house. Keep it simple. Help your child cut out shapes from felt to make her scene, and use fabric glue to attach them to a plain sheet of felt. You can either glue the plain sheet of felt to a piece of cardboard or you could use the felt without the cardboard.
- Next, create your “attachables.” To make these, either cut out magazine images or photographs and glue them on felt pieces, or cut out shapes from the felt directly. For the Cinderella story, you might cut out people shapes for Cinderella, the Prince and the wicked stepmother; a fancy dress to go over Cinderella’s rags; horses, a giant pumpkin carriage, friendly mice or glass slippers, etc. For Little Red Riding Hood your child could make a basket of food, a red cloak, a sneaky wolf, some blooming flowers and a grandmother - whatever your child feels like putting in her fairytale. She can make it as simple or as complicated as she wants, but be sure to include enough elements so that your child can play around with the story.
- Your child can glue pieces of felt on top of other pieces to add character, and if you’re handy with a needle, it’s nice (but not necessary) to embroider faces on the characters for your child. Otherwise, your child can use a felt tip marker (like a Sharpie) if she would like her characters to have faces.
- Once you’re done, your child can move the people and objects around on the storyboard to create different scenes and scenarios. And because felt naturally sticks to itself, you don’t need to bother doing anything else to make it work!
Bring out your completed felt board and all of its accoutrements, the next time you and your child take a train ride or a long car trip, and watch the time fly.
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