Felt board- waste of money or not?

[ohiomommy1122]

I was considering making a felt board for 3 yr old DD but was wondering if you all think its a waste of money, does anyone really use them? what do you really do with them?

Do you have pics of you bought or home made felt board?

[MissRubyandKen]

felt board

The pic isn't the best, but I'm no photographer, lol. It looks crooked in the pic for some reason, but doesn't irl. And that is only some of our pieces. This was actually really cheap and easy to make. Did I mention fun? It measures 50" x 30". This could definitely be done on a much smaller scale and still be fun. I've seen people use cereal boxes or gift boxes too. They covered the boxes and stored the pieces inside. The cardboard was free. We bought spray adhesive and 1 yd of felt. The felt I lucked into getting for $3 on sale at Jo-Ann's. I also used fabric glue I already had to secure the felt all around the back. Dp used some screws and washers he had to hang it up, but it could have been done differently I'm sure. I think some people buy a frame for it. He wanted it to be really secure and immovable because youngest dd is 16 months old. I have it in my head to make a felt border around the edges at some point to cover up the screws. So maybe $12 worth of materials altogether? The felt pieces you could buy or make yourself. I've probably spent about $15 on felt, but have a ton left still. For the pieces I used templates from the internet and some from library books. Some people use coloring books or make them themselves too. I can share sites or books if you are interested. My older dd, 9, also had fun making pieces too. You can use the fabric glue to add small details with contrasting felt or material. Your dd could probably help you design a few that way, if you cut out the pieces. I plan on making more food and shape pieces, animals, some fairies, trees, gnomes, and bushes, etc, and possibly an alphabet and numbers, also some fraction and decimal pieces for the older kids. I'm also considering making a busy book with the felt. Yeah, I've got high hopes! The older kids wanted people and I've made a few with limited success, lol. I think people also use them as story boards, like tell a specific story while moving related pieces on the board. I can see youngest dd maybe liking that when she is a little older.

[BellinghamCrunchie]

Our felt board was a waste

I first tried to use it to tell stories, but DD wasn't all that interested and using dolls or puppets worked much better for story-telling.

Then I made a calendar out of it, and we would decorate it for the month and put the numbers on, etc. DD just liked pulling everything off. We use the Highlights calendar that came with her Highlights High Five subscription and that works much better.

A chalkboard works better for drawing stuff and some kinds of storytelling.

Things tended to fall off. DD liked to pull everything off. Things didn't stick all that well.

Everything that we could do with the flannel board we could do better using something else, it seemed.

[TortelliniMama]

Originally Posted by BellinghamCrunchie

Things tended to fall off. DD liked to pull everything off. Things didn't stick all that well.

I've also had issues with getting felt pieces to stick to felt/flannelboards. When I was teaching, I ended up making a lot more sets out of laminated pictures on paper/cardstock. With the rough side of velcro on the back, they stick very well, and are much more reliable than felt pieces. On the downside, they don't layer well (you'd have to put soft velcro on the front of the pieces that are to be on the lower level) and the velcro does cause the board to quickly develop a fuzziness from the repeated pulling off. Overall, I much preferred the velcro.

[MissRubyandKen]

I haven't had any problem with our pieces falling off. It is not wool felt. Maybe that makes a difference. Most of the pieces are felt made with recycled materials. They also layer great. I was actually quite surprised by that. The kids I have over playing with it are between 6-10. Granted dd at 16 months is much more interested in watching others and then tearing it all down, but it is fun for her.

ETA: I did learn my lesson not to make the pieces with too thin parts. You can see my tailless cat in the bottom right corner of the pic, lol. Dd promptly pulled it off.

[sebarnes]

I like ours. I actually bought it from a library book sale for $1 and then found a ton of already made felt figures for about $3.00 from a local thrift store. DD and DS enjoy playing with it and telling stories. It helps that the pieces we bought from the thrift store are all fairy tales and nursery rhymes, so very conducive to kid imagination. I want to make some different stuff at a later date to use as the kids get older, but for me, the output of money was definitely worth it.

[sewchris2642]

No pics because the felt board and pieces are all long gone. My girls love it and played with it lots. My son, on the other hand, was indifferent to it. He prefered Legos. Cutting out all the pieces was tedious but I did it slowly over time. First the basic shapes for one story. Then just added pieces as we added stories and as the girls asked for certain ones. If you don't want to do all that work, then make some and buy some as needed.

[yippityskippity]

My 4-1/2 yo loves her. I don't use it any formal way, she just plays with the figures and makes up her own stories.

[Lillian J]

Originally Posted by ohiomommy1122

I was considering making a felt board for 3 yr old DD but was wondering if you all think its a waste of money, does anyone really use them? what do you really do with them?

Do you have pics of you bought or home made felt board?

I've known of some children who enjoy playing with, but you can quite easily skip it. We used to have one at our playgroup room, and I never saw any children play with it. I made up an elaborate watercolored set to tell the story of Chicken Little for a storytelling class I had in college, and the idea was that a class of children could have fun reciting the names of all the animals each time they were repeated in the story and put on the board - my peers in the class got a lot of laughs doing that - so using them for storytelling could be fun, but storytelling with no props is probably richer for the imagination. Lillian

[darcytrue]

I bought an old felt board a few years back at a church sale for $2 on a whim. It has people, trees, houses, clothes and animals in it and includes 3 hard boards with felt on them. My DD still likes them and drags them out occasionally. I'm glad we have it and for two bucks I figure it's not really a waste even if it doesn't get used often.

[MrsAprilMay]

I can try to take a picture of ours later, but I really like it. I got large picture frame from the thrift store. I them used it to "frame" a large piece of thick poster board covered in flannel. Very cheap to make. And it's a great way to use up felt scraps.

[MissRubyandKen]

Oh yeah, I wanted to say that the pieces that get played with the most here are the basic shapes and the food. The kids will combine the shapes to make things or just in an abstract way. And they like to pretend they are laying out a meal with the food.

[tuffykenwell]

I made a felt board out of a 12" Pizza Box (felted the top and the pieces are stored inside) for playing with in the car and that was very popular. Mostly I think because I stocked it with dress up pieces for Niamh that I got from here. I think $6.95 is a great deal for the number of pieces you get in a set and Niamh loves playing dress up with the dolls. Cutting them out was tedious but I left a thin rim of white around all of the figures which made it MUCH easier and they still look awesome. I just left it by the TV and cut out a few every night until I was done LOL!

Steph

[Lillian J]

duplicate post

[Lillian J]

Originally Posted by MissRubyandKen

Oh yeah, I wanted to say that the pieces that get played with the most here are the basic shapes and the food. The kids will combine the shapes to make things or just in an abstract way.

That's an interesting idea! Shapes could also be used like pattern blocks if you cut the same kinds of shapes that those sets do. And even tangrams!

- Lillian

[mamarhu]

I love felt boards, but none of my kids ever displayed even an ounce of interest. I made the board from a "presentation" tri-fold cardboard, and tried letters, photo-realistic undersea, wildlife, and farm sets, fairy tales, shapes; no interest. I made tanagram sets, and little pieces to make a quilt pattern. Life is so unfair.

[yitlan]

I bought ours, usually used off ebay. I ended up with a few and we love them. I originally got one as a quiet activity for my 2yo for when her sister was born. It was a great quiet activity to do while I nursed! She could sit with me and sort of do her own thing. I got sets of stories I knew she liked. I've also taken it on car trips. I don't use them much for official school, but use it to keep the current toddler engaged. Or I have them "build" the story while I read. OR spell things out or just play with the felt letters for my more tactile learners. So....for us - worth it!

[Lillian J]

Originally Posted by mamarhu

I love felt boards, but none of my kids ever displayed even an ounce of interest. I made the board from a "presentation" tri-fold cardboard, and tried letters, photo-realistic undersea, wildlife, and farm sets, fairy tales, shapes; no interest. I made tanagram sets, and little pieces to make a quilt pattern. Life is so unfair.

Yeah, kinda' like my crayon experience. I got my son every kind of crayon imaginable, but... - Lillian