Teaching children with felt/flannel boards

[CF1]

Our church has a plastic organizer cabinet with felt/flannel board figures of Bible characters, people, animals, houses, objects, etc that any teacher can borrow.

The problem is to find the figures needed to support a given lesson each sunday. It takes a lot of time and most often I can only find half of what I need to make the story make sense because it is not kept organized and others are borrowing the figures I need or they do not return them.

So my wife and I resorted to buying our own set from The Felt Source

[SNIPPED - left link for any to follow, but details, prices, etc, are not needed here]

I realize it will be a lot of cutting with scissors of the 600+ figures but it seems like a good ministry to support the sunday school Bible stories with vivid pictures. We plan to pay our children to help with the cutting, and my retired mother is planning to help.

Have others purchased a set like this and how has it worked out?

 

[dh1948]

I am not personally acquainted with any ministry that still uses flannel boards. Back in the 1950's there was hardly a church that did not use them for the children.

Obviously, there are churches that still use them since you can still purchase them.

I hope it works for you and that the high-tech children we have around today will respond to this simple teaching tool.

 

[matt wade]

Kids still like puppet shows too...it's amazing how some things just never get old. The kids will love the flannel board .

 

[billreber]

I have used flannel-graphs as recently as 2 years ago, and the First and Second graders I was working with loved them!

I don't now because they belonged to the other teacher in the class, who has since stopped teaching. I miss her and the flannel-graphs!

Bill :godisgood:

 

[CF1]

I saw these flannel boards advertised in a home school catalog we got from friends several weeks ago. I had not seen flannel board/graph supplies for many years so we started to research it.

We realized the cost is "reletively low" compared to inflation of other things and decided to go forward to purchase it.

Puppet are sometimes goofy. Flannel board characters are serious people who look real, not goofy or funny. The point is to instruct, not humor the children. I think God or the people in the bible are likely offended when they see some of the goofy depictions of real people through puppets and goofy looking childrens books for Christian teaching cirriculum.

It seems likely that teachers just grew weary of using flannel board/graphs after 3 decades of heavy use (1950s-1970s). When I was child years ago I sat under the instruction of many teachers who used flannel board/graphs all the time in the 60s and 70s.

Sometimes we teachers just want to try something fresh and new.

But now it's been many years since flannel board/graphs have been used heavily and it's interesting to discover the cost is reasonable for what you get at that price and the kids still like to see them up to a certain age.

There are some powerpoints for sale to teach children, which make sense above a certain age. But some of those powerpoints lack the impact and accuracy of the Word, that the flannel board/graphs still offer. Also young children (age 3-7 need smaller class sizes and powerpoints are better for large groups and require a projector and laptop. I'm a very high tech person myself and our kids are immersed in high tech gadgets. But the 3-7 or 8 year olds still love seeing these flannel board/graphs.

So maybe its worth encouraging others as well to go back to the flannel approach, which still has a lot of value in teaching children accurate truths from the Bible. Some of the cirriculum our church uses (Karen Hensly) is pretty weak on Biblical accuracy compared to flannel boards. The strength of our church's cirriculum is in light hearted themes that create a fun environment of learning about the new world small children are exploring and discovering. I think 4 year olds are more intelligent than that and they can handle actual stories from the Bible, like you have with flannel boards/graphs. They seem to love the real stories much more than simple rhymes and sing-songs about how God is great and made the world.

 

[CF1]

Our flannel board/graph set described in the OP arrived in great condition!

The inks used today seem brighter and more vivid than when I was a child! It seems like they digitally remastered the quality somehow.

The cutting is going well. We are using a Fiskars small size (~7 mm) rotary cutter from Walmart for the intial rough cutting, and then regular Fiskar scissors for the precision cut. Our girls love to do this. It's all on the dining room table. It's like when we do a puzzle on the dining room table. Everybody want's to help and then try out the figures on the boards.

[SNIPPED]

We are looking forward to using it on Sunday! It will be much more meaningful than having only the simple cirriculum used at our church, which is so lacking in depth.

 

[webdog]

I'm involved in the preschool ministry at our church and we use them. They really grab the young children's attention. Highly recommend them!

 

[Deacon]

We purchased our own set too, for the very same reason!

We created our own felt panel for the "Genesis 1 days"

It's so instructive that I think it could be used to illustrate the organization to adults.

Rob

 

[Berean]

What memories this post brings to my mind. I remember some 70 years ago being taught the stories of the great men of the Old Testament and many of the first truths I learned from the dedicated teachers of the past who naturally have gone on t their reward. Thanks for this post.

 

[CF1]

What memories this post brings to my mind. I remember some 70 years ago being taught the stories of the great men of the Old Testament and many of the first truths I learned from the dedicated teachers of the past who naturally have gone on to their reward. Thanks for this post.

Amen to that! I feel the same way.

Those who used flannel graphs in the past did not have high tech powerpoints but I will never forget the dedication and testimony in their hearts, which conveyed their deep love, which was a gift of God to me!

 

[CF1]

We realized we also wanted to order the following

* an extra carrying case, since it only holds 1 large board,
E-2026N Small Flannelboard Storage Bag - 20"x26" 19.99

Correction. For those few people who might actually be trying to take advantage of all our research, here is the extra storage bag stock number we ordered (Large, not small). Sorry for the error in copying and pasting above.
E-2436 Large Flannelboard Storage Bag - 24"x36" 29.99

 

[dcorbett]

What memories this post brings to my mind. I remember some 70 years ago being taught the stories of the great men of the Old Testament and many of the first truths I learned from the dedicated teachers of the past who naturally have gone on t their reward. Thanks for this post.

Same here...blessed memories! They worked for the children then, they will work for the children now.