Monday, May 4, 2009

Still More of the Good! Beyond Books: Using Flannel Boards & Music at Preschool Storytime

Beyond Books: Using Flannel Boards & Music at Preschool Storytime was presented by the very musically talented Lorraine Burdick from Sno-Isle. She spices up all of her storytimes with music and feltboard stories (usually musical stories) and likes to add twists to old favorites. She did a terrific overview of where to get ideas for feltboard stories. Lorraine bucked the paperless trend and actually provided attendees with a handout. Unfortunately, she never posted it to the conference site, so if anyone would like a copy, drop me an email. It's worth it...

Things I learned from this session:

•Why should we be using feltboard stories? Feltboards help with early literacy (sequencing—moving across the board as you move across a page) & incorporate all 3 learning styles (visual, auditory, & kinesthetic). And they’re fun, too. But you knew that.

•Do tweak “old” favorites like “The Greenwood Tree” or “When Ducks Get Up in the Morning” to incorporate exotic farm animals like monkeys, T-Rexes, and lions.

•Use felt, pellon, photocopied images, & store bought to make something familiar new again. For example, use a purchased set of “transportation” pictures to transform “She’ll be Coming ‘Round the Mountain” into: "She’ll be riding in a school bus/dump truck/police car/mini-van and flying in an airplane when she comes."

•Go heavy on the audience participation, not just with supplying noises & singing along but in bringing pieces to the feltboard. Just make sure you’ve got enough to go around...

•Use apple “faces” to tweak “Way Up High in the Apple Tree”:
Happy smiled at me
Quiet whispered
Sad cried
Sleepy yawned
Angry was angry (growled?) at me

•Twinkle Twinkle Little Star can be more than just a fingerplay!
Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star
How I wonder what you are.
Twinkle, twinkle little star,
I wonder who has a (color) star. (Kids bring appropriate color to felt board.)

•Sing “Who has a Shape Today” to the tune of “The Farmer in the Dell”: “Who has a (color) square/star/triangle/rectangle today?”

•Try Non-Holiday seasonal favorites to work around "we don't do holidays" objections:
“Turkey Feathers” (to the tune of “Do You Know the Muffin Man”)
“Oh do you have a (color) feather , a (color) feather, do you have a (color) feather, hang it up right now.” (Kids decorate turkey outline with scads of colored feathers.

“Counting Pumpkins” (an original tune, Lorraine will email the mp3) an alternative to “5 Little Jack O’Lanterns sitting on a fence”.

Discussion & schmoozing afterwards also turned up the following tip--try using foam-core poster board for your travel feltboard—it’s much lighter than say, masonite. I’m building one at this very moment to demo in our STARS flannel board workshop as a cheap and easy alternative to a purchased feltboard.

I'm very excited about some of the ideas presented here. Some of her tweaks emphasizing shapes, colors, and emotions are going to be terrific in our play & learn sessions. And yes, I did email Lorraine for an mp3 of the Counting Pumpkins song.

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