One idea that Palma discusses in the opening pages of her curriculum books is fabric bulletin boards. I love the idea. Spend some time creating a quality fabric bulletin board that can be pulled out and tacked to the wall or bulletin board whenever that topic comes up. Several years ago…alright, many years ago, I made a couple. I wasn’t real happy with them. They served a purpose but still not as visually pleasing and as useful I would have liked. I love a bulletin board that is interactive. If it is multi-purpose that’s a plus too.
I finally have come up with something that, while it does take a little time, it is easy to do, is interactive, is reusable. It is basically just a background made from felt. Felt is easy to work with. It comes in a variety of colors. And best of all velcro sticks to it. The backgrounds can be used in a variety of lessons which reduces the number of fabric boards that need to be made. The board pictured above has been used with David, The Good Samaritan and Feeding the 5000.
The interactive part? The bulletin board is blank when the kids come to class. During class they get to put the appropriate pieces on the board. Or the students adds a new piece every week. With the David board, the students added a sheep each week. The students added baskets of food to the Feeding the 5000 board.
With the Good Samaritan board, the kids helped tell the story adding pictures as we talked about it.
With the sea creatures, the students were allowed to add all the fish at once. The sea background is being used while studying about Jonah. It can be used during Creation as well.
You could get elaborate and make the add-ons from fabric but the easiest thing to do is print them on cardstock, laminate and stick a small piece of velcro to the back. When I say a small piece of velcro, that’s what I mean. A piece as small as 1/4″x1/2″ is sufficient to hold for as long as the board is being used. If the velcro is too big it will grab hold of the felt won’t let go.
The David, Good Samaritan and Feeding 5000 images can be found in Palma Smiley’s To Toddlers With Love books. Most of them can be bought in digital format now making using them in different ways easy. The images for the sea creatures were purchased from Vectorstock.
Black felt and Palma Smiley’s graphics make this fabric bulletin board beautiful. The stable and the manger are sewn into place. The stable is just strips of brown felt.
The manger being sewn on as a pocket so baby Jesus will get placed in the right place.
You gotta love kids. This is how it turns out when they put the pieces on by themselves. :)
Thank you so much for this precious post about Palma and your creative ways to use the bulletin board.
I appreciate it very much.
Susie
Is it ok for me to use your article on our website or provide a link to your article ?
I would be honored for you to share or link to my article. Let me tell you a story that prompted the comment about Palma. My DIL teaches the baby class in her congregation. I suggested TTWL. She said that the congregation had already put together their own curriculum for the class. Always looking for new ideas, I was intrigued and wanted to see what they were doing. It quickly became apparent that someone in the past had originally used TTWL to put together “their” curriculum. Younger teachers are being blessed by the hard work Palma did as well as the hard work someone in their congregation did years ago.
I just saw your reply! Thank you so much ! I will provide a link and description so that teachers will be able to view the different ways you use Palma’s Curriculum as well as the other resources on your site.
Many Blessings,
Susie