The Power of Parenting

Monday, 18 May 2020

Magnetic and Felt Board Characters

Making up and telling stories encourage your child to use his imagination and to build his expressive language skills. Creating his own story characters from magazine pictures adds to the fun in this Comfort, Play & Teach™ activity!

 

You will need:
  • Pictures of people cut from magazines (select pictures that reflect diversity in culture, ethnicity, age, ability)
  • Scissors (for adult use)
  • Glue stick
  • Bristol board
  • Mac tac
  • Felt
  • Magnetic tape

 

 

Instructions:
  • Glue the pictures onto Bristol board and cut them out. Laminate them with mac tac and then affix either felt or magnetic tape to the back. Place the pictures either onto a felt board or a metal cookie sheet.
  • Your child can use the pictures to talk, to make up her own stories or re-tell familiar stories she knows.
  • Ask open-ended questions about the different characters (e.g., about what they are wearing, how old they are, what it looks like they are doing) to encourage your child to use his expressive language skills and to add his own ideas to each story.

 

Enjoy this more with Comfort, Play & Teach™:

Comfort:Your child can explore a range of feelings and feel empathy for others as she creates stories using different felt board characters.

Play:Making up and telling felt board stories enables your child to practice important expressive language and social skills in a way that is very creative.

Teach:Using felt board characters lets your child make observations about people’s differences and similarities (i.e. hair colour, age, ability).