This morning, while I was out in the yard enjoying the dry frozenness (I have a dog, if you get my drift), feeling all comfy in my flannel lined Eddie Bauer jeans, I started thinking about another kind of flannel, aka flat people,
What about you? Did you grow up loving flannelgraph stories? Do you use them now? Do you have any idea what I’m talking about? (I personally had no exposure to them until I started using them to teach a little over two years ago.)
Share your flannel nostalgia here.
It has been years since I thought of those flannels … we absolutely had them! I think we may have bought the first one in England, but they were extensively used by my brother, myself, and then passed along to cousins.
We have little personal play sets of Betty Lukens. They only get occasional play use. There are way too many pieces, I think a case of “having too many options leaves your imagination nowhere to go.” They aren’t as big a hit as a set of felt paper dolls I made for myself as a girl… don’t have them any more, but I loved them, and my girls have similar dolls.
You can buy squares of felt at Wal-Mart, and cut out a doll-shaped one, glue on some yarn (or felt) hair, then trace and cut dresses and such out of other colors. Of course you have to glue on fancy trims and sequins too. Then use an uncut square for the background, or you can stick the doll onto the couch or a pillow. Then you make your doll a friend with different hair color, and it just keeps going….
But I was always transfixed when listening to the flannelgraph stories in Sunday School.
Flannel graphs! Wow…it’s been a while since I’ve seen one of those used to tell a story, but I definitely remember them from when I was growing up.
Someone just donated a very neat set to our church for the children. Not sure who makes it though. It has scads of pieces. The 4 year olds and I had a blast with it! There were princess pieces (with all of the trimmings, including a carriage) and ballerinas and even some Veggie Tales and Thomas the Tank Engine pieces. If I remember, I’ll check to see who makes it, but Jennifer’s idea sounds great and like it could be so creative!
I *loved* flannelboard stories in Sunday school when I was very young. 😉
Wow! I hadn’t thought about flannel board stories in years! We had them in Sunday School every week – I’ve probably seen every Bible story done in flannelgraph!