Easels are a fun and versatile tool that you can use to promote many skills for your child(ren)! Read on to see how we took some inexpensive tools to create one of our own for lots of fun play :)
The easel pictured is from when I was a child (I just love when toys can be passed down, especially ones that we have such special memories playing with).
Materials:
-An easel or other board
-Scissors
-1 yard of felt (we went to Michael's, any hobby or craft store works). I was thinking grass when I chose the green color, but you can do any color you like!
-Assorted colors of felt for making your own shapes/numbers
-Felt animals (from Amazon, you can find the link here)
-Clips to hold the felt along the edges (and also to make it a quick switch back to a board to hold paper for coloring) I found mine at Target. Surprisingly Eloise did not bother the clips too much!
Now the fun part, let you little one explore! You can use the board to work on identification of shapes, colors, and for older kiddos, matching or grouping animals and storytelling is great!
The beauty of this quick craft, is that you can be as creative as you want! Are my numbers perfect? No way. Is my star cringe-worthy? Yes ma'am! But does my daughter care? Heck no :)
Some tips for our littlest of felt lovers:
Less is more-if you are wanting to start with colors or shapes, just use some shapes to begin with, as the space quickly fills up.
Allow for lots of time for exploration before beginning to add the explicit learning-your child likely hasn't interacted with felt in this manner, so allowing them to touch feel, smell, maybe even mouth the items is all part of understanding the felt pieces.
If your child is hesitant, try adding a piece at a time, modeling for your child, and then encourage them verbally for interacting with the pieces or putting them on the board themselves.
If your child has a visual impairment, try using high contrast colors like a white felt background with black shapes and numbers. Conversely, you can also use a black felt background with white letters/shapes. Bright colors such as orange, red, and yellow reflect the most light and are easiest to see, and can also be used with a white or black background.
Your young child may only be interested in the activity for a couple of minutes-this is okay! As they get older their ability to attend and their interest for an activity will grow simultaneously.
If the pieces end up all over the place (like the first time we played with this), encourage the valuable skill of putting things away before transitioning to something else. Build it into your routine and your child will come to expect that we clean up before we move on to another toy or activity.
So have fun with this, and get creative!!