my easy peasy home made felt board

So I had an inspiration one day while I was wrapping up our school day. My creative thinking process works like that. I'll think of something and just do it. Just like that.
I wish I could tackle every project in my life with that much gusto!
But I mentioned back here how we worked on felt letters together, and how I made my own felt board. I love felt. I love the hands on playing and learning you can do. I love the textile feeling of it. I'm a hands on kind of girl and find that I learn best by physically being involved in something. I knew it would be great for Oliver too, it seemed like he would love to be able to do it by himself (that seems to be the theme for a three year old) and he would also learn how to think through his letters and how they are built.
SO, when the boys went down for a nap I pulled out materials I thought would work for my own felt board. I considered using a big piece of cardboard for the actual board and covering it with felt but that probably would have been a big unfinished looking mess. I remembered that we had picked up several cork boards from a neighbor and they were literally sitting around waiting for us to do something remarkable with them. Well today was the day!
Maybe not remarkable, but they were a perfect match for my felt board. I pulled out the larger one, some felt material I had stashed away with my fabrics, scissors, a marker and some thumb tacks.

I didn't plan on making this a permanent felt board, as I like to have my options for our cork boards. So I took the temporary route. I laid my piece of felt over the whole board. It was an odd sized piece of fabric so I just made sure it covered the board. Then I pressed into the edges of the board, where the trim met the cork. I used thumbtacks to press the fabric down, while I used a marker to gently draw along the edge for my cutting line. Then I trimmed my pattern out. Done. Right?

see that big gap? yah, this was attempt number one. fail.

No, not done. Failed actually.

I realized that I shouldn't have drawn right on the edge, I should've gone beyond the edge a bit. About a 1/2" or so. Felt is stretchy, so once you make it taut it bounces back, sort of, when you release it.

SOOO, I did the whole process again, and just set the first piece aside for using in something later.

While I was making my second piece, little boy woke up from his nap, so there was that going on beside me :)

I did it correct the second time around! After I had my piece, I used thumbtacks to press it into the edges. I may get some smaller tacks, or use staples as an low profile option. But for now, this is working fine.

I then cut out some letters for Oliver (I used chalk to outline my letters).
I made his name, and the letters we are working on right now, Aa.
Such an easy project. Well, once you figure out the measurement correctly :)

Preschool Week 3, Day 2 (our final day for the week)

Day two, also the last day of our school for the week. It was a short week due to the fact that we headed out of town the rest of the week for a family trip!
We started the day with our routine things, then I introduced Oliver to the Pledge of Allegiance. I thought I would like to start including this into our routine things so that Oliver can start to memorize it. I am thinking we may include the Christian pledge too, but one thing at a time.
We actually don't have a flag in our house. Can you believe it? Not that we aren't patriotic, we've just never bought one. When I get a chance I'll pick one up we can hang in our school area. But to make do with what we had, I used a small flag that is used on our calendar. I showed Oliver the colors, read through the pledge and explained how we respectfully say it.
The next thing was to create a flag for Oliver. I had him paint some popsicle sticks in flag colors, and we'd later glue them together. He likes to paint and does pretty good painting small pieces like that.

We then moved onto the number 2. I had Oliver write over the 2 with his dry erase marker. He did pretty good with it. I then helped him create a 2 with chalk on the chalkboard. His attention isn't very long with writing yet so we didn't spend a lot of time there.

I kept the marker out and tried something new with the letter Aa. I had him search for all the "a's" in the words on this printout. I need to get a smaller tipped marker for him to do this kind of detail or just print out some larger words. (mentally planning for future)

He did some writing exercises with the letter Aa, followed by shape drawing (lines and circles). Then we moved to the felt board to practice creating Aa. He's getting it, but it's still tough for him to remember how Aa is formed. I'm so proud of how well he does with sitting still and working hard on these!

Finally we wrapped up our day reading through Psalm 34:13 and listening to the song that went along with it on Steve Green's album Hide 'Em in Your Heart. You can listen to both volumes for free on Spotify! I'd like to purchase them eventually, but it sure helps to get them free! Oliver really loves music and he will sit and listen to it play for quite a while. Not sure how long if I let him :) I've let him sit there a good 30 minutes before and he was content doing just that! But he sat and listened along to the song and it's great how quickly you can learn a verse just by hearing it in song!