Felt table – Thrive After Three

Tag: Felt table

Tic Tac Toe: The Felt Table Game

Posted on December 16, 2015January 19, 2016 by mrsshaia

For my winter felt table I decided to create a Tic Tac Toe game. I used fabric paint to make the lines in the board. I cut white snowmen and black snowflakes with my die cut machine. Kids of all ages have been having fun with this! My local preschool gave me the idea when they had Pumpkins vs. Ghosts near Halloween. You can really do this anytime of year with a seasonal theme.

Tic Tac Toe teaches children problem-solving and coping skills. Once children learn that the game should end in a draw, they’ve mastered it. For older children you can use the Frog on a Log cards and have children play Animals vs. Objects.

For more Felt Table Ideas, click here to see how you can add this passive program to your children’s space.

Felt Board Table: Fairy Tale Edition

Posted on October 16, 2015December 16, 2015 by mrsshaia

After a summer of superheroes, I decided to balance out the room a bit with princesses. I wrote about stealing this beautiful princesses from What Bridget is Reading last year. I incorporated them into my felt table, along with a few surprises:

For more felt table ideas, check out my link here.

For more storytime ideas, check out Mel’s Desk. She’s hosting Flannel Friday this week. To find out more about Flannel Friday, check out the website, the Pinterest board, and the Facebook Group.

Every Hero Has a Story Felt Table

Posted on June 18, 2015October 25, 2015 by mrsshaia

Superhero Felt Table (4) — I made red, yellow and blue “backgrounds” on polka dotted felt so it looks like a comic book.

To kickoff the summer reading theme this year, I made a felt table for children to play with during the busy months. I used Storytime Katie’s post a while back as inspiration and then went to the craft store. I haven’t stopped hearing squeals since I put it out!

Superhero Felt Table (6) — 5 superhero gals

Superhero Felt Table (7) — 5 superhero lads

Superhero Felt Table (3) — Complete with speech bubbles and signals.

Happy summer!

Felt Board Table: Cars & Community

Posted on March 11, 2015October 16, 2015 by mrsshaia

I’ve spruced up my felt table for the spring and did a car and community theme. (I can’t find my original inspiration, so Rebecca if you post in the comments I’ll update my link!)

I used grey felt and made a black road with white felt paint lines. It came out awesome! Then I found fun ideas on Pinterest and made community buildings, modes of transportation, a car wash, and a gas station (my favorite!)

Felt Table Gas Station — I hot-glued the end of a show lace to make a “gas pump!” My favorite part of this project!

To get more storytime ideas, check out Laura’s Libary Lalaland. She’s hosting Flannel Friday this week. To find out more about Flannel Friday, check out the website, the Pinterest board, and the Facebook Group.

Felt Board Table: The “Winter” Collection featuring Frozen

Posted on December 3, 2014March 11, 2015 by mrsshaia

My Felt Board Table is the best independent “program” I’ve ever come up with. It’s more popular than my scavenger hunts! We have families of all ages play with this from opening until closing very little setup time on my part. Since we had our first snowstorm, I am debuting the Winter Collection this week. I made an assortment of themes I will be mixing up each week to keep things fresh. I’m sure we’ll be listening to the Frozen soundtrack with these awesome new pieces! Here they are:

For more ideas check out the school age programming blog hop, Thrive Thursday. Jbrary is hosting this month’s roundup. For more information check out the schedule, Pinterest board, and Facebook Group.

Felt Board Table: The Fall Collection

Posted on September 10, 2014March 11, 2015 by mrsshaia

I tested out my felt board table during this year’s summer reading program. It was a huge hit! Children of all ages, and most of their grownups, loved playing with the variety of pieces. So, I decided to create a fall table. I created four leafy trees and two bare tree trunks. I made sets of 10 fruits that grow on trees: red apples, oranges, green pears, and purple plums. I also cut out yellow birch, red maple, orange oak, and brown hickory leaves to add to the bare tree trunks. Children can practice counting and color identification. I’ll also leave out some people and modes of transportation to allow creative play and storytelling.

This time, after getting a little help from my Flannel Friday Friends, I pre-washed the felt to preshrink it and then sprayed it with Scotch Guard. I’ll report back to let you know how it holds up. Hopefully I’ll be able to use it again this time next year.

UPDATE: The Scotch Guard works amazingly! I washed it and it looks brand new. I’ll be able to reuse for sure! I also added Thanksgiving dinner plates with all the fixings by multiple requests:

For more flannel ideas, check out my friend Ms. Kelly at the Library. She’s hosting this week’s blog hop. To find out more about Flannel Friday, check out the website, the Pinterest board, and the Facebook Group.

Felt Board Table

Posted on July 11, 2014March 11, 2015 by mrsshaia

Since I added a passive programming station for my school age kids, I decided to update my preschool area. My toddler table was the bane of my existence for a while. I could never quite figure out what to do in the preschool area. I have a small children’s room and offer puzzles, board book bins, and assorted toys for children to play with. I had a basket of coloring pages and crayons. I tried all different kinds of options: coloring pages, activity pages, blank pages to be more creative. It just didn’t work. Children would half-color a page and leave it littering the children’s room. I was wasting money on paper and staff time to photocopy pages, and more staff time to clean up.

So…I decided to try something new. I covered it in felt! First I used a sky blue. I used Velcro tabs along the bottom of the table to hold it in place. I also used rubber bands on each leg to secure it.

Then I cut green grass and hot glued it on top of the blue:

Lastly, I added some white clouds:

I placed different felt pieces in a Tupperware bin: mermaids, cars, princesses, fairies, construction vehicles. It’s been a HUGE hit! Not only do the children fit around the table better (most times they stand around the table, so they fit more kids than 4 chairs), but they love playing at the library and don’t want to leave. It’s also a great way to let the flannel stories that haven’t worked well in storytime live on!