Use of flannel boards in early childhood education
What is a flannel board or storyboard? It is an invaluable and versatile educational tool for preschool teachers and children. The storyboard has become an integral part of the preschool curriculum. It is basically a storytelling board covered in flannel or felt material that teachers can use with preschool children to tell visual stories with pictures, storyboard shapes, and a variety of other manipulatives that are made of flannel or cutouts. of felt (flannel is glued to flannel). Flannel boards can come in a variety of sizes and can be mounted to a wall or be a smaller tabletop style with an easel that folds up easily for storage.
The tabletop style is ideal for small groups of children and encourages more participation and interaction and can be easily stored away. The larger wall-mounted style is more permanent and best for large groups, such as in a classroom. Flannel boards or storyboards can be purchased commercially, but it’s very easy to make your own. Some of the commercial whiteboards have a magnetic back side for use with magnetic manipulators and some may have white boards on the back.
Retelling stories is an important skill in language and memory development with preschool children. Pre-literacy is important and even young children will benefit from listening and watching as older children play. Young children always learn by watching and modeling older children. Most preschool settings have a population of various ages, and age overlaps for various groups, as do most families.
Encouraging a child to retell a story or a number sequence or identify colors and shapes is a great independent activity as well as fun for a partner. Retelling reinforces learning and abstract concepts. Preschoolers will gravitate towards this anyway if the materials are left on the board for their use. They will also make up their own creative stories using the flannel board shapes in a free play environment. Children enjoy touching and feeling the soft manipulative shapes.
For parents, playing with the flannel board is a great independent activity for quiet times like waiting at the doctor’s office, long car rides, or right before bed or nap time. Flannel boards are also fun for rainy days. indoor activities for kids. Teachers love using them for everything from telling stories; abc games for kidsthemed lesson plans to teach songs, rhymes, and fingerplays.
Flannel Board Sets are soft, colorful felt cutouts of shapes, letters of the alphabet (upper and lower case), colors, numbers, or story characters and accessories. You can find commercial games for fairy tales, nursery rhymes, popular literature, safety lessons, maps, the seasons, calendars, animals (zoo, jungle, farm, pets, etc.), special holidays, dinosaurs, multicultural ideas, Bible characters, games, transportation and many more early childhood topics. They can be purchased pre-cut or teachers and caregivers on a budget can make their own felt designs.
Flannel board activities are fun for families, preschools, Head Start centers, home day care providers, homeschooling families, early childhood education settings, teachers of Sunday school, special education classrooms, librarians and school teachers in the first grades of primary school. Even upper grade teachers can find good use for flannel boards to teach the States or other geography, maps, or math lessons. The utility is practically infinite.