Friday 4 November 2016

DIY Felt Board and Retelling Centre Pieces

I posted a picture on my Instagram of my latest DIY project. I have been wanting to make a felt board for some time now and finally found some free time in between naps and housework! :)


The board was super easy to make. I followed this AMAZING tutorial from Ashley over at One Sharp Bunch. Everything I needed I found at Michaels (and used my coupons and teacher discount too): 16x20" picture frame, black felt, and Tacky Spray glue. Check out Ashley's tutorial here for more details.

I've been eyeing up this awesome rainbow craft/photo storage kit from Michaels, but didn't know what I would use it for. Then I thought it would be great to house different story kits to use with the felt board! Here it is in all it's glory.... holding 16 different story retelling kits!


All the pieces fit neatly inside each of the small plastic cases:


The felt sets were super easy to make. I thought about stories that I love to read to my class that are good for retelling (and also that I might have already have clipart of...) and got to work making my sets! Unfortunately I can't share the sets with you because it is basically just printing out clipart (which is against terms of use). I will list where I got the clipart sets from though, so you can make your own sets if you are interested! All you need is some white felt sheets, T-shirt transfers, and an iron! Create of page of images in PowerPoint (mirror imaging the images as needed, because they will transfer backwards), print on the transfer paper, iron onto felt, and cut out! It is easy as that!


Here's a look at the story telling sets that I created. I've linked to Amazon (affiliate links) to find the books I used and the links to where to get the clipart sets as well.


The Three Little Pigs (any version is fine)

Clipart by Clipart 4 Teachers (I made my own letters though with KG Blank Space font)

The Gingerbread Man (any version)



Cat Clipart by Melonheadz and Catch'em Early (I don't think these sets are available anymore, but this one by Clipart 4 Teachers includes all these pictures)


This set was a bunch of randoms I found, but you can find the outline of the dog here from Making Learning Fun.

One thing that I found with these printed felt pieces is that you can't layer them on top of each other because the felt is covered in the transfer. So I used sticky velcro dots from the dollar store where I wanted the felt pieces to stick. On this example, I placed the rough piece of the velcro dots on the dog so that the soft backing of the coloured dots stuck to the dog.



The Little Red Hen (any version)

Seed, Sprout, Pumpkin, Pie by Jill Esbaum (great science connection as well!)

Pete the Cat found here from Making Learning Fun
**I used velcro dots on Pete's jacket to stick the buttons on!**

**I used velcro dots so that the ten mice would stick in the jar.**