Kids Tearing Down Felts

Thank you to all who submitted answers to the Ask Jbrary post about how to handle little ones tearing down felts during storytime. I so appreciate your thoughtfulness, creativity, and willingness to support others in our community. I have summarized and quoted everyone’s feedback so that this post may act as a reference page.

Ask Jbrary

Dear Jbrary,

How do you get kids to stop running up to the felt board and tearing down the pieces in the middle of storytime? I’ve been trying to use felts but I get so defeated! I know the babies and toddlers aren’t doing it to rain on my parade, but it makes me feel like it’s a pointless. There’s gotta be tips and tricks from seasoned librarians who can help me out!

The Jbrary Community Answers

There are a variety of strategies you can use before, during, and after using the felt board to mitigate this issue. Alyssa, better known as La La Librarian, provided a beautiful summary:

1. Making your environment do some of the work for you.
   • Keep the pieces visible, but out of reach
   • Set expectations with caregivers

2. Using developmentally appropriate approaches to the felt story:
   • Understanding reasonable expectations for toddlers, your group dynamic, and reflecting on your comfort level with certain behaviors.
   • Giving the children a way to experience the story that is active as opposed to passive by incorporating surprise, movement, voice, or dramatic play (this also requires caregiver buy in)
   • Inviting the children to put the pieces on the board
   • Providing a delayed opportunity for them to interact with the pieces

She also recommends “framing your approach to storytime a bit (especially with children under the age of five) so that the dynamic leans away from presenter/audience and towards leader/group (you, kids, and caregivers do all activities together.) This dynamic shift can eliminate a lot of unwanted behaviors, and enhance the overall storytime experience.”

Let’s dig in to these suggestions!

Create a No Fly Zone

Before storytime starts think about how you can demarcate the space where you sit to visually cue kids and caregivers. One person says, “You could put some tape on the floor to designate your area, giving the children a visual for where they can and cannot be.” Another person suggested using Mel Depper’s idea of the Blue Carpet No Fly Zone. In her post, Mel writes:

The other trick I use is one I learned from Betsy Diamant-Cohen, the creator of the Mother Goose on the Loose infant and toddler storytime curriculum. She recommends setting up your storytime “command center” on a small area rug. Whether you use a stool, or a chair, or a CD player, or a flannelboard, set it all up so it is on the rug.”

Another person shared a similar strategy using a brightly coloured cloth:

We place a large piece of purple cloth below our chairs (there are two of us) and felt board, extending a foot or so around us in all directions. We kindly and clearly tell adults and kiddos that this is our purple “no-fly zone”. We tell caregivers that movement is expected and encouraged at our birth-two baby program, but if their kiddos come into the no-fly zone, we ask them to pick them up and take them back to where they’ve settled. We make this announcement every week, and you’d be surprised at how many 18 month-olds will come up with their tippy toes along the edge of the purple cloth, just looking at us and then back at their caregiver, wondering what will happen if they take a step! It’s really about communicating to the parents how to help you. It’s really fun when the kiddos get it!

Out of Reach

One way to solve the issue is to make it impossible for the kids to reach the felts in the first place. Here’s what people say that looks like:

• I prop the felt board on the back of a table leaning against the wall; that way it’s out of reach!
• I handled it by elevating my flannel board on a table pushed against a wall where the flannels are somewhat out of reach of littles. I also typically don’t have the flannels displayed on the board until I’m ready to tell or sing the flannel story or song.
• I use a lap stage sitting on a table to hide all my flannels and I call it “my magic box” where all the storytime activities come out (I try to decorate it for the theme too!). Our flannel board is elevated on an easel which mostly deters grabbers, but not always!
• I put my felt pieces on a neat, but homemade board made of flannel stapled to rigid cardboard. It is nice and light and I hold it in front of me. If a little one comes up to grab something off of it I just raise it out of reach and keep going.
• I use an easel similar to this one and this portable flannel board. It’s worked very well for me and also solves the problem of kids standing right in front of the felt board and blocking everyone’s view.

Communicate to Kids AND Caregivers

Similar to our last Ask Jbrary post, communicating expectations to families helps them understand storytime is a communal activity that requires us to work together. It’s ideal to communicate this at the beginning of storytime or right before the felt activity, but sometimes you have to speak up during the felt too. Many people gave suggestions for how to phrase this in a kind and clear way:

• “I am going to handle the pieces while I tell the story and the children are going to stay seated so that everyone can see. Adults, can you help me out with that?”
• You could do a fun movement activity beforehand and also include something about, “Now that our wiggles are out, I need you to stay on your bottoms for our next activity.”
• “This little sweetie’s grown-up needs to come and get them so we can continue in a way that everyone can enjoy.”
• “In order to keep the children safe, please do not come up and touch the flannel board or the easels.”
• “Give me and others space.” 
• “Please keep your little ones with you so everyone can see and enjoy the felt story/rhyme/whatever.”
• “Grown ups! (pause to make sure they’re paying attention) We need your help making sure that no one takes anything off the felt board!”
• Part of my hello and good morning is to set ground rules for storytime which includes grown ups keeping their kiddos within “the family bubble” or within arm’s reach.
• For those that wander – keep them within hugging distance. Storytime is a team effort.
• I take it back gently and say go sit with your grownup, or “where’s your grownup?” in a friendly way – it doesn’t call them out completely, but hopefully the grownup is paying attention. If the grownup and offender won’t stop, I put the whole thing down and say “I think we’ll save this for another day.”
• I will say something like, “Uh-oh, I need you to take a step back/ sit on your bottom so our friends behind you can see.” or I might say, “The kitties/ pumpkins/ fish/ etc. will be available to play after storytime, but right now I need to use them.”

Get the Kids Involved

As Alyssa mentioned we need to be aware of developmentally appropriate choices for babies and toddlers. They are still developing executive function, sensory motor, and language skills that give them the ability to self-regulate, understand verbal directions, and wait their turn. You can enhance this learning by inviting them to take part in the felt activity. Instead of telling a felt story that requires pieces to be placed in a sequential order, try one of these ideas:

Kids really love the felts and I don’t want to discourage that. So, depending on the number of kids there are some felt sets where I have enough for the kids attending and hand out a small felt mitten or whatever BEFORE we start the other flannel stories. They know to hold on to it and that they will have their turn on the board when the other flannel stories are done. Then they have their chance to put it on the board and then we can count the mittens or say what colors we see, sing a short rhyme or song etc. This can be really easy/cheap to facilitate of you use the dollar store foam stickers/pieces and just stick a small piece of the adhesive Velcro on the back. Works well for smaller groups and if, like me, you do the flannels all together and not interspersed throughout the Storytime.

Sometimes, for our toddler storytimes, we will bring the board down to sit on the ground and hand out flannels to each child so they can come up and put it on the board. We only use flannels that we cut out specifically for this (think simple shapes like hearts or cats) so there’s no worry about them ripping or even hanging onto it. It can get a little chaotic for a minute as the toddlers all walk around, but I would say that 9 times out of 10 every single flannel makes it onto the board in under 2 minutes, which I think is great! It gives them a chance to stretch for a moment, and I think its helped keep the grabbiness down during other parts of storytime.

On my last felt activity I had 12 seashells different kids on one sheet laminated and then asked the children to match up the seashells with the same one but cut out laminated ones they took from me, the 1-year-olds did a great job! All the children including the four-year-olds loved it. They are used to me letting them take them or put things on the board.

With little ones (3 and under), I will have interactive flannels where the children are each given a piece and when it is their turn they get to put it up. Sometimes it is an introduction song and when their colour or name is said then they get to put up their piece. For example, we have a flannel for “Dog’s colorful day” by Emma Dodd and each child gets a coloured spot to put on. This way they are active participants in the story, and it gets the curiosity of the flannel board out of their system. 

As a retired public children’s librarian, one of the best ways I found to engage kids in a flannel board story was to let them each have one of the felt pieces to add to the story. They listened intently for their moment to come forward and add their piece to the board. My favorite flannel board story was Flip Flap Jack because there were so many pieces to add to the man’s face/body and if kids put their pieces in the wrong place or upside down, it just made everyone laugh. My version, taught to me by another librarian, began slightly differently: “There was a man made of breakfast food…” Also, the kids could slip-slap clap their hands everytime I sang “Flip Flap Jack.” (tune is “Aiken Drum”).

I pass out sturdy felt pieces of flowers, fish, shells, leaves, balls, etc, and then place a color on the board and ask everyone who has the same color to bring it to the board. After going through all the colors, I ask them to bring any extras up to put them on the board. 

Creative Options

A few people shared ways to share felts that don’t involve a board at all.

Try a Felt Apron

I use and LOVE the aprons designed for flannels! Ours where from Lakeshore Learning and they are called a storytelling apron. They have great pockets too which is handy as well. Even very small kids seem to have some concept of personal space, so it eliminates most of the flannel grabbing.

Try Magnets

We have metal doors that are “magnet-able” and we sometimes magnet on a big piece of felt so that it is high up and can be used as an “out of reach” flannel board. We also have a lot of “flannel stories” that are not flannel at all, but laminated pieces with a piece of adhesive magnet strip on back so the doors are a great option for this.

Try Digital “Felts”

I used felts when I started doing storytime (sourced from Jbrary and all the wonderful folks in this community!), but after a few tear-down instances I went digital. I know this solution can’t be universal, but it worked for our projector setup. Using clipart and Powerpoint, I made a “Little Mouse, Little Mouse” presentation, where you can click on each house and it disappears, eventually revealing a clipart mouse. With this basic format, I have switched out the pics for other ones for “Mr Snake, Mr. Snake/Little Fox, Little Fox/etc.,” and the kids love it! And if a teacher has an HDMI hookup, it’s also great for classroom visits. I just grab my branch laptop and go! The only downside is that kids lose out on the felt tactility.

Stay Calm, Move On

At the end of the day, it’s only natural for babies and toddlers to try and touch things that grab their interest. It’s how they learn. These instances are a chance for us to develop a “go with the flow” attitude in storytime, modeling patience and flexibility to caregivers. These two quotes captured this sentiment:

I try to have a sense of humor about it – like most things, especially with toddlers!

You never truly get away from the flannel-grabbers! It’s just a normal part of storytime!

To read even more suggestions, check out the comments on the original post.

Do you have a storytime question you’d like to be featured on Ask Jbrary? Feel free to send me an email anytime!