Inspiration for your classroom flannel board!
When I first opened my own school, I went on flannel board making spree which you can see how I made my own by clicking on this post: DIY Make Your Own Flannel Board. At the time, I made two large flannel boards and 8 small flannel boards and have used these same flannel boards ever since. However, I use them for all different purposes which I thought I would share with you today…
1. Story Telling Board
Of course, the most common use for a flannel board (also called felt board) is for retelling simple stories from a book or making up stories of our own…
2. Counting Board
Our small and large boards are often converted into counting or math boards. I like to use them because the materials (like buttons or dominoes) don’t slide easily off or around the boards as they would a tray and the flannel boards are also a quieter surface for noisy materials…
I also like to give each child their own small counting board so they have their own space to work with…
Whether that space is on the floor or on the table, the small flannel boards give the children a nice working area of their own…
3. Graphing Board
We use our large flannel board as a graphing board all the time.  I simply divide the board up into columns by adding tape across the board.  Once we are done with our graphing process, I take the tape off and the board is back to normal again…
4. Estimating Board
We often use our flannel board to estimate numbers such as we did in this photo. I start with a pile of mittens and the children estimate how many mittens they think are on the board. And then we spread them out to count how many mittens are actually on the board…
5. Patterning Board
The felt board makes a great surface for making patterns as well. When our pattern goes a little long and we need more space, we just put our pattern boards together…
6. Sorting Board
We are often using our flannel board as a canvas for sorting felt or real objects…
7. Game Board
And the flannel board makes a great game board. Once again, I use tape to create any game I wish on the board like this parking lot game for my grandson to roll his cars around on…
8. Lap Board
We often refer to our smaller flannel boards as “Lap Boards”. This is because the children can hold them in their lap to work with while we are sitting as a large group on the floor….
9. Creativity Board
The flannel board offers lots of opportunities to be creative. Whether it is putting together a candy cane out of felt pieces or making a design of paper hearts, the ideas for being creative on a flannel board are endless…
10. Collection Board
And finally, we often refer to our flannel boards as our collection boards. We use them to set out collections of leaves or rocks to admire and observe and discuss our collections with each other…
Why we Love the Flannel Board
So as you can see, the flannel board is not just a flannel board. It is a collection board, a math board, a story telling board or any kind of board you want to name it and use it for. It is a wonderful tool for the classroom so don’t just keep it tucked away as the “teacher board!”
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