One thing Rory loves to play with at our local library is a felt board. For weeks, I’ve been eyeing it up and have wanted to make one!
For those that are not familiar what a felt board is, it’s just a board wrapped in felt. But what makes it so special is that other pieces of felt stick to it. So I thought this would be a good learning activity for shapes, colors, and letters.
This craft is extremely easy and does not require many materials! It also does not take a long time, which is good if your child has a 5 second attention span like mine does!
My normal activities usually involve the kids in the “creating” process, but this is not an activity that the kids can help a lot with, but one that they will love to play with!
Materials:
- Felt: one big piece for the board and scraps to cut out and use on the finished board (affiliate links)
- Canvas: I bought a canvas at the hobby store. I went for a bigger size but your can use any size you choose
- Staple gun and staples
Lay out the big piece of felt on the floor and put the canvas upside down on the top of the felt. If you need to, cut around the felt so that there is only a few inches around the canvas.
Starting with one side, wrap the felt around the canvas and use your staple gun to staple on the wood part of the canvas. Then take the opposite side and pull it tight. Lift up the felt around the canvas as you previously did, keeping the felt pulled tight, and staple it on the wood part of the canvas.
For the final two sides, I cut the corner excess off so it would not bunch up when I wrapped the felt around the canvas. I stapled the 3rd side to the wood of the canvas and before stapling the final side I once again made sure the felt was pulled tight.
Your done! You now have a beautiful felt board!
I cut a bunch of shapes and letters out of my scraps of felt lying around for Rory to play with and she immediately went to town. We matched colors, matched shapes and spelled out her name. Its a great learning activity!
You might also be interested in these other do-it-yourself educational projects for kids:
- Make your own “sticky sticks”
- Make Your Own Felt Shape Board
- Make Your Own Lacing Cards
