Flannel Friday - Passive programming

Thanks to the Flannel Friday Round Up, our library's collection of felt board stories has been growing for a couple years. They are a wonderful addition to storytime, but it seemed a little boring to leave them in files the rest of the year.

We happened to have some foam core posters just waiting to be repurposed.  After measuring the space, I trimmed a piece to fit, and used instructions similar to those at Time for Play.  It is nicely mounted to the bookshelf with Command strips.  Now our library's felt pieces can be used by children on a regular basis.

Each set is likely to sit out for play from one to two weeks at a time.  For the first two months, the set was left out just like that.  Then it struck me that this could be even better.  I added a pocket for index cards.  Now, each set can have a card printed up with the rhyme that matches.  Each family that plays is welcome to take home the card as a reminder of their library visit.  Another bonus is that our staff can count the cards left when we swap sets to tally this as a passive program.

By the way, I just love our hand painted signs, don't you?

Not so Flannel Friday: Kicking off

Many magnificent librarians and early childhood educators have inspired me to join the blogosphere in a new way.  Much of this is thanks to the Flannel Friday Pinterest boards.  I've tested the waters with guest posts at Rain Makes Applesauce and Loons and Quines.

This week, the Flannel Friday Round Up is featuring the upcoming summer library program, Dig into Reading.  Sherry Duskey Rinker's Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site combines a favorite of little boys in every generation, trucks, with one of the most important factors in pre-literacy, rhyme.

Die-cutting can be challenging with felt, but works great with craft foam.  While cutting shapes from the dies that rotate through the libraries in our system, I was only missing the crane in order to allow the storytime crowd a tactile connection to this book.  It was easy enough to trace the digger and extend its arm into a crane.  These pieces have velcro added to the back for use on the flannel board.