A DIY felt board can provide hours of fun for toddlers and preschoolers. Okay, hours might be an exaggeration, but it could definitely occupy your busy kiddo long enough to get dinner made or laundry done. One of the great things about a DIY felt board is that they are inexpensive to make and can be used as a fun, educational tool. You can create all sorts of pieces to play with on the board. I had a lot of the materials at home, but you can find them on Amazon or at crafts stores, like Hobby Lobby, and even big-box stores, like Target and Walmart.
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Materials for a DIY Felt Board
Cardboard or Poster Board – whatever size you like
Felt – large enough to cover the cardboard/posterboard
Felt – colors and sizes to make the pieces you want
Hot Glue
*One great feature of felt is that is sticks to itself, so you don’t need velcro or anything else. I will say though, the felt doesn’t always stick well. Piper and I don’t mind so much right now. I may purchase some in the future, as I feel she’ll get frustrated if her work falls off before she’s finished.
Steps to Create
Cut the large piece of felt so there are about 1-2 inches that can be folded onto the backside
If you have fold lines in your felt that bother you, iron your felt before moving on
After you have the felt cut to the correct size, place the cardboard on top, making sure there is adequate fabric left around the edges
Cut a square in each of the corners so that they felt will lay flat when you glue it down
After the corners are cut out, start gluing the fabric to the backside of the cardboard
You want to make sure you pull the fabric tight so it is smooth on the front side, but not so tight that it makes the fabric stretched or uneven
After you get your felt glued on, your DIY felt board is ready to use!
We attached our felt board to the wall using command strips, but they didn’t hold up well because they were sticking to the felt. I ended up taking it down so it can be moved from the living room to her bedroom or wherever. You could even make small, lap-sized boards to take on long car rides or to appointments.
Before you can play, you do need to make some felt pieces to play with. You could ask an older child to help or create some on your own. The first pieces I created were snowman pieces. They were simple to make quick and allowed for fast fun.
Let the Fun Begin!
When you introduce the board to your kiddo(s), make sure you have some pieces to use. Show them how the felt pieces stick to each other and the board. I reminded my daughter to use gentle hands when pushing the felt on. I also showed her where the pieces go when she’s done playing.
You can create all sorts of felt board stories to go with your board. They can be very simple or quite complex. It’s really up to you how detailed you want to get. You can print templates from the internet to pin on and cut around. I’ve also seen people print out images on cardstock and attach a piece of velcro to the back of it, so it will stick onto the board without using additional felt. There are also felt story kits available to purchase. The kits are prepared and ready to use.
There are TONS of benefits to creating and using a felt board. From developing creativity to enhancing pre-literacy skills, they can really provide a whole host of educational benefits. You can read about all of the benefits of using a felt board in this post. Kiddos think they are just playing but they will be developing lots of new skills. What more can a parent ask for? Did I mention they’re pretty inexpensive to make?
In an upcoming post, I’ll share lots and lots of specific activities you can do with a felt board. In the meantime, get creative and let your kiddos help you create the pieces. If you have a favorite book, use that as inspiration and make pieces to go along with the story. You will definitely have a lot of fun playing together. Enjoy!
Don’t Forget to Pin It!
