8 Ways to Teach with a Felt Board

If you've seen any of my YouTube videos, you may have noticed the big blue board. That is my most valuable teaching tool- my felt board!  If you don't know what one is, it is a piece of wood covered with felt.  I use it daily and couldn't live without it! Here are 8 ways we use a felt board in our homeschool.

1) Bible

Bible Class

My children are taught the Bible daily, and I'll be honest- I need a little help in making the Scriptures come alive!  You can either purchase felt characters or make your own.  We are using a combination of both in this picture.  The kids love helping put up the people.  

2) Poetry

"The Swing" by Robert Louis Stevenson

We use the Abeka curriculum in our homeschool, and my kids have specific poems that they are supposed to learn.  I never had to memorize poetry as a child, so this was something I had to get used to.  I didn't really see a point, nor did I know how to make memorizing poetry fun for my kids.  Did I learn how to use poetry in my class in college?  Yes!  I love poetry, and wrote it for years during my childhood! But memorizing classic poems . . . ?

I needed help, so I decided to make visuals.  I found clipart online, colored them, and laminated them.  Then, I hot glued felt to the back so they would stick to the board.  My children get to see, touch, hear, say, and even act out the poems.  This is one of our favorite things to do!  What's fun is finding one of the poems we memorized in a poetry book from the library.  

3) Phonics

Teaching phonics can be boring and downright frustrating if you do it wrong.  I found these awesome free ice cream cones from TpT, printed, and laminated them. Then I wrote phonics blends on them and turned them into a matching game.  I've also done it with cupcakes . . .

"hot chocolate" and marshmallows . . .

popcorn . . .

and more!  Watch my Youtube video to see how we play!  

4) Math

In the above picture we are using our felt finger puppets for counting. Sometimes we count up, sometimes we count down, and sometimes we do both!  This particular poem goes like this:

5 baby owls learning to say who,

Flapped their wings and then they said, "Boo!"

Mama Owl cried, "No, no, not boo,

Please, oh please, say, "Who who who!"

You repeat the poem, changing the word "boo" to rhyming words- glue, shoe, moo, etc.  Although we aren't counting up or down, my 2-yr old is seeing 5 owls and memorizing what 5 actually looks like.  And this poem teaches rhyming too, which is a nice bonus!

I have also taught patterns with my felt board, and numbers.

Here, my 5-yr old had to create numbers I told him.  Sometimes I gave him a specific number.  Other times I told him to make any number from the 50's family.  

5) Music

I bet you can guess what song we are singing!  That's right- "One little, two little, three little Indians . . . "

The kids put up the Indians as we count up, and they take them down as we count down.  This gets a bit tricky, as they have to take turns.  We mess up a lot, but this is one of their favorite things to do!  This is a counting song, which covers two subjects at once.  

6) Classic Stories

I like to teach my children classic stories.  Although my 5-yr old can listen to stories and understand them even if they don't have visuals, my 2-yr old is not there yet.  This morning I told, "The Boy Who Cried Wolf," tying it into our Bible review of Adam and Eve.  Although Jesus is our Shepherd, the boy in this story was more like the serpent in the Garden of Eden because he lied.  This is a great story for little ones who love to tell lies, or even for children that think everything is an emergency!  I colored pictures to represent the different items in the story, laminated them, and then hot glued felt to the back to make them stick.  The kids love, LOVE, story time with the felt board!


7) Story telling

I created a Halloween felt set for the kids to play with.  I pulled it out and told them a fun story.  Then, it was their turn to make up stories!  I was shocked when my outgoing 5-yr old didn't want to tell a story at first, that is, until he saw his younger brother impress me!  Watch my 2-yr old tell a Halloween story!  

8) Free Play

Mix and Match Monsters

More Mix and Match Monsters

Race Car Fun

More race car fun with a homemade table top felt board

I love watching my boys create scenes and play with the felt pieces I made for them!  Sometimes they tell stories, other times they are designing a scene. I personally enjoy creating the monsters with them!  I have made lots of different playing sets- robots, frogs, etc.  All you need is a good coloring book for some inspiration!  Cut out whatever template you want, trace onto felt, cut out, and decorate using glitter glue, googly eyes, or more felt to add color and details.

Felt boards make a great addition to any family- whether homeschooling or not! And they are a lot of fun to create!  Do you use a felt board?  What are some ways you use yours?  Comment below!  

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4 Simple and Frugal Ways to Teach the Bible

Raising my children to know and love the Lord Jesus Christ is first priority in our home.  While I don't shove the Bible down their throats, I do want them to get daily Biblical instruction.   Ultimately I want them to have a heart for the Lord so they can live their lives to their fullest potential.  Although this blog post is about teaching the historical accounts recorded in the Bible, they will learn to love God because of the truth they see in my husband and I.  I will save that topic for another day!

My purpose in this post is to hand new moms or new Christians with just a few resources to help them teach their little ones about Jesus at home.  It isn't an easy job.  It takes time, effort, and money.  But here is how I teach it simply and frugally.  I am new at this myself, so please comment with any tips you have to new moms!

1) Every day after our morning routine (breakfast, clothes, hygiene) we gather in our living room to start our school day. Daddy is already at work by this point, so I do the instruction here.  I pray, and then pull out their Bible verse binder.

Inside of the binder are baseball card protectors. I purchased them from Walmart for a few dollars- well worth the investment.  And inside of the protectors are the ABC Bible verses my children (2 and 5) have memorized.  On the first day of school I began teaching the "A" verse ("all have sinned and come short of the glory of God" Romans 3:23).  After the boys memorized it (a week later), I let them place it in the very first spot.  To avoid fighting, I let the one who knew the Bible verse the best add the card to the slot.  Then, I took out the card and handed it to his brother.  He got to put it in the slot.  We have had NO fighting at all with this method.  You think my 5-yr old outshines his brother every time?  Not so! My 2-yr old thinks mathematically.  He knows the Bible verse references better than anyone in our family!

I bought these wonderful ABC Bible verse cards with my son's K5 Abeka curriculum.  They are a little bit too wide to fit in the baseball card slots.  But no problem- each card has a border around it.  I trimmed them on the left and right sides to make them fit perfectly!  They were $3 or so- so inexpensive that I'd rather buy a whole new set than laminate them.  I am thinking about making a free set similar to these, if they would be a help to you (comment below if you would like to see something like that!).

2) After prayer and Bible verses, it is story time! This is where teaching the Bible gets fun (or not).  Our favorite way to learn our Bible stories is by using the felt board.  

A felt board is so easy to make.  Grab a piece of scrap wood, wrap some felt around it, and hot glue the edges.  Voila!  The Bible story pieces can be very pricey, about $20 per story set!  I purchased a set on Amazon for $20- but it included several stories and a lesson plan book!  Sadly, I can't seem to find it on there anymore!  The pieces were uncut, which is why they were so inexpensive.  

You can also make your own felt people, if you're crafty.  Find some clip art you like (you could even find some in a children's Bible) and print it out (mirror image) onto t-shirt transfer paper.  Then, iron it on.  Cut the pieces out and you're done!  I haven't gone this route yet because I haven't found Bible clip art that doesn't look like cartoons :/

Or, you can find coloring pages of Bible characters (online or in books).  Color the pictures, laminate, and then hot glue a scrap piece of felt to the back. In the above picture I'm using this method (Adam and Eve) combined with factory-made characters.

The kids don't always listen to Bible stories very well, but they absolutely love to listen when they know they get to help put those figures up!  

3) I found this great website one morning when it was time to teach a Bible story that I didn't have any visuals for.  The site is called Bible for Children.  They have the Bible stories laid out like a children's Bible. You click on the story you like, and read to the kids. The stories are longer and more detailed than a children's Bible, which I love.  The images do look a little wonky sometimes, but the kids don't care. Since I teach Bible on the living room floor, the computer is easy access for us.

4) And of course, if you are short on time, knowledge, or just want some variety- you can always rely on a good old fashioned Children's Bible. 

The stories are only a page or two, and many, many stories and details are left out, but they do hit the main topics . . . usually.  I have found many Children's Bibles at the thrift store, but this particular one came from Sam's Club.  It was the first one that appealed to me after searching high and low!  It is called The Beginner's Bible, and they have it on Amazon as well.  The one I bought from Sam's came with the blue and green cover.  

And those are the four main ways I teach the Bible to my kindergartners.  We do listen to Bible songs throughout the day (we love Veggie Tales), and we also make Bible crafts from time to time.  But the above 4 ways are done on a daily basis.  God bless!