Flannel Friday: In the Garden

I made this set earlier this year and thank goodness I never posted it because now I have something new for the round up I’m hosting this week!

A few years ago I bought all three of the McDonald/Gershator board books: Who’s In the Forest, Who’s in the Farmyard, and Who’s in the Garden. They are all PERFECT for baby storytime and the illustrations make me smile!

I made a set of shapes to go along with the Garden book:

A big frog, a little frog, a rock, and a white picket fence.

A watering can, a garden hose, and yellow roses.

WHY are the roses yellow and not red? Why do the fence and the hose have a red background?

Because all of our flannelboards have a red background!

I didn’t make patterns, but I looked at the images in the pictures as I cut the felt. You can see the frog and the watering can in the lower left hand of the book in this picture:

What did I do with these pieces? Different things for different ages. With the babies, I put the pictures up, talking about them as I did, with the big frog sitting on the rock at the bottom of the board. Then I had the frog “jump” from the rock to the blue hose! Then back to the rock! Then onto the yellow flowers! Then back to the rock! Then to the orange watering can! Basically this is just a chance to use color words and specific garden vocabulary that the babies might not hear every day. Plus the anticipation! WHERE will the frog jump next??? Maybe she will jump on my HEAD??? Simple pleasures work really well for the babies!

With the older kids I would ask them what garden things they remembered from the book–the hose and the roses are ending rhymes so those were easier to recall. I helped them remember the watering can and the fence with some clues: This is something we use to pour water on our flowers…This is something that keeps the rabbits from coming into your garden and eating the vegetables! As I put the objects up, one of them would have the little frog behind it. Then when the big frog was up on the rock and we’d talked about everything, I’d say, “The big frog is looking for a little frog in the garden! Where do you think little frog is?” If they said the fence, I’d say, “Should we look under the white picket fence?” and expand on their answers a little bit. We’d look until we found the little frog! This is easy to play again if they want to!

One trick for layering pieces like this that I learned from Miss Elisabeth, one of the smart storytimers on my team, is to put a Velcro dot on the back of item that’s underneath, on the lowest layer. The extra sticky from the Velcro dot will help keep the frog (in this case) attached to the board instead of pulling off with the top piece and ruining your reveal!

I had the round up this week and it’s a GREAT one. Go check it out!