Learning And Fun With Felt

This project is super cheap and easy, but there are endless possibilities for fun stuff kids can do with it.

Purchase several colors of felt at your craft store or discount store. Walmart has 8x10 squares for 20 cents each, so we got 10 colors for two dollars. There are several reasons felt is a perfect material for children. For one, when you cut it, it doesn't fray. Also, it comes in bright colors that are great for art projects. Thirdly, it sticks to other felt.

Here are some of the many things you can do with your felt now.

• Use a light blue square as a background and cut out small shapes like trees, flowers, birds, a sun, and houses. You can also cut out stars and a moon and use the black felt to make night. Your child can design scenes mixing and matching the cut-outs.
  
  
• Cut out squares, circles and trianges in many colors. Show your child the difference between shapes. Show him how you can use two shapes to make a new one (like two triangles together form a square). Make everyday objects out of the shapes, like a triangle on a square looks like a house.
  
  
• Match up shapes, colors and sizes. Put up a red square and ask your child to find another square. Now see if she can find something else that's red, and so on.
  
  
• Practice counting. Put up an assortment of shapes and count off how many there are.
  
  
• Mimic designs. The skills that toddlers use when putting puzzles together and copying simple designs are the same skills that later help them with math and science. This is an area girls sometimes lag a little at, and educators recommend doing spatial games with them to help build these skills (these games help boys too of course!). Give your child a large square as canvas and keep one for yourself. Make a simple pattern using different colors and shapes, then ask your child to make the same pattern. For instance, you could put a yellow square down, then have a red triangle against each side of it to make a starburst, then add blue triangles in the corners... Start simple and get more elaborate. It's also just plain fun! Let your child make her own designs too.
  
  
• Make story boards. Cut out a couple of simple people shapes along with other objects that kids like, such as balls, blocks and animals. Play-act scenes by putting the characters and objects on the canvas and make up a story with them.
  
  
• Make a dress-up doll. Cut out a simple child figure, then cut different colors of clothing like shirts, shorts, hats, and so on. You could even do face and hair parts to change your doll's mood and looks. If you make more than one doll, have a little diversity in skin colors, shapes and sizes too.
  
  
• Cut out letters. Arrange them in order, spell out your child's name, and do things like show how changing one letter turns cup to pup.
  
  
• You can also purchase adhesive-backed felt if you want to stick it to the wall for the canvas. It can be easily removed. Or you can buy clear contact paper and cut it to fit a sheet for the wall. Again, it comes right off.
  
  
• You can even help your child design her own custom made shirt. Pick a plain t-shirt or sweatshirt (you can recycle a stained or torn one if you use creative placement). Let your child put her design on the shirt however she likes, with shapes, words, or pictures. Then either stitch them on with matching or contrasting thread (contrasting embroidery floss will have a darling child-like look) or glue them with fabric glue.

We're having lots of fun with our felt and there's so much more left to do. I think it's the best two dollars I've spent!


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All works on this site Alicia Bayer unless otherwise noted.
Don't take it - that would be rude.