felt board

PET LOVE

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We’ve had great fun this week talking about pets and how much they mean to us… Chat and discussion about how to look after pets, what we love about pets and what we think having a pet is all about… The children have especially loved dramatic play this week – school has been bustling with the sounds and scampering of every pet under the sun!

A discussion table, felt fish pets and lots of small world and sensory play…

Colour sorting, shape matching and emergent reading…

Of course plenty of open art…

Pet craft activities…

And a class full of gorgeous puppies…

pet puppies

 

 

PET LOVE

SPACE!

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Our school is filled with budding astronauts! The children’s interest and enthusiasm for space always amazes me! No lack of song and movement for this week and many trips to space! The real hits this week were gloopy sparkly space dough and our rocket building activity.

Amongst other activities around the class were astronaut emergent reading boards and felt board.

And of course plenty of fun art!

SPACE!

EASTER FUN

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This week we’ve had a great time with our Easter theme! Beside the usual easter hunt and bunny excitement we had fun exploring texture, colour, music and plenty of movement…

The children had great fun with the easter templates on our felt board – there were bunnies, chicks, mother hen and plenty of easter eggs! As an easter provocation there was an easter landscape filled with basket nests and wooden eggs, scarves, “hidey” holes for eggs, easter bunny, spring animals and assorted loose parts. They spent hours hiding the eggs, sorting them, counting them and re-arranging the items creating their own space.

On the shelves there were plenty of little baskets with lids and wooden eggs and pebble owls to sort, count and explore. I made some felt “eggs” to manipulate the scarves inside – great for fine motor co-ordination. On the tables plenty of sorting trays and plastic eggs to fill with an assortment of different textured pom-poms.

Great bustle and creativity for all before the holidays filled with plenty of open-ended art opportunities, play and general easter excitement!

EASTER FUN

AUTUMN

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There are so many lovely creative activities for children to do in Autumn. The seasons are changing and the air is crisp and fresh…They start arriving in warmer clothes and we bundle up before we go outdoors. We don’t need an excuse for warm tea and biscuits! Even though the weather starts restricting our outdoor activity at times – there is no shortage of energy and enthusiasm!

I’ve included a few displays in this post for Autumn inspiration! On our theme table we had miniature Autumn leaves with pine needle brooms and Autumn creatures. The children spent ages sweeping up the leaves and making “nests” and “warm beds” for the animals. We even painted with our home made brushes as the week progressed.

On the other side of the class we had an Autumn felt board that had the children riveted in long periods of avid story telling and re-organising!

Outside we had various areas with bundles of Autumn finds – as the week progressed every one’s treasures and finds got added to the piles. Each day there were little “creatures” and “insects” hidden among the leaves, pinecones and needles waiting to be found and played with.

We loved playing with the projector and experimenting with all our finds. Playing with light, shadow and colours kept everyone busy for ages. There were so many different items to explore and discover. The children even played at being “Autumn” leaves as they danced amongst the shadows!

AUTUMN

PROJECT – VERSATILE ACTIVITY BOARDS

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I don’t have much free wall space in our class – so what I do have available has to be utilised really well. I knew I wanted a felt board as I have lots of felt resources I’ve made over the years to let the children make their own stories and use them in story telling during circle times. I also wanted an activity board…and a chalk board! Oh boy…

So we came up with a way to incorporate all 3 into the space I had available for them with a series of boards that I can easily change on the wall. The easiest to make was the chalk and felt boards and these make use of the same board back to back. The activity board was a little more complicated and patient husband pretty much put that one together for me.

Items we used: wood for frame; thin board for inside frame; blackboard paint; glue gun; wall screws; hooks; felt; board for activity board; various second hand items for activity board.

The chalk/feltboard was relatively easy to make. Besides the time for the paint to dry it’s also a quick project. We found an old frame that I painted on one side and attached the felt to the other with a glue gun. Patient husband attached the screw to the wall and hooks to the board and thats it!

The activity board was a little more complicated and took a few days  weeks months to make. The most time consuming part is gathering all the items you are going to put on the board. We went to a car boot sale market and sourced most of the items there – otherwise the board will end up costing you a fortune. It’s also quite difficult to attach the items to the board securely – patient husband helped with this as you need to be handy with a number of tools to make holes, screws and rings to secure at the back and sanders to smooth off edges.

The boards are great – I use them all the time and am constantly changing their original purpose to suit the occasion! Sometimes the children paint with thin paint brushes and water on the chalk board, draw with thin and fat chalks etc. The activity board is a great hit and the children will turn it into whatever they are currently into – race car, fire engine, aeroplane or just an activity board!

PROJECT – VERSATILE ACTIVITY BOARDS