A few weeks ago, I did a storytime about animals getting ready for winter and am just now getting around to sharing the feltboard, activity, and craft that were a part of the storytime.
We read the story Busy Little Squirrel by Nancy Tafuri.
After the story I had the kids close their eyes while I hid a ton of paper acorns around the room. I have learned that if I hide them before class, they find everything while they are waiting for storytime to start and I wind up having to re-hide everything again. So now I just do it quickly right before the activity.
I explained that we were going to search around for acorns just like the busy little squirrel and then hide them in our tree. I made a paper tree trunk with a large hole cut in it where the children could ‘store’ their acorns.
Later we read the book Time to Sleep by Denise Flemming and I had a felt board to go with it. It was a really small group the week I did this program so I had the kids each bring up an animal as we read the story.
At the end I had a fun little craft. The last book I read was Sleepy Bear by Lydia Dabcovich and I had a cute little craft to go with it.
Everyone got a pre-cut cave and sleeping bear. They glued the bears in the caves and added some tissue paper leaves to make a bed. Then I passed out cotton stuffing to make snow on top of the cave. They turned out so cute! There were also crayons available so they could add any extra details they wanted.
On to my late submission of m Holiday Extravaganza Felt board. But better late then never I guess…
I based my felt board on the book Ten Little Christmas Presents by Jean Marzollo. I just leave off the “Christmas” part when I do the story and make it about just presents in general.
There are a TON of pieces for this feltboard, but it’s not too hard to do. I have everything arranged ahead of time. Cover up each gift with the appropriate present box. As each animal receives their gifts, I lift up the present to find the gift underneath and put it on the felt animal.
Sorry about the flash 😦 but here you can see all the pieces laid out together. On the felt board I line up the presents in two rows, then add the animals next to their gift as they come up in the story.
You can find the rest of the Flannel Friday roundup over at Liz’s blog later today.
Busy Crafting Mommy 
Whoa those are all awesome! That tree is the coolest think I have ever seen!
I want to be a kid again and go to your storytimes!
Love the acorn in the tree idea. I might have to try that one this winter.
Where did you get the felt board pieces for Time to Sleep?
I made them myself 🙂