Parent tip
Set out cardboard boxes and felt pieces before inviting your toddler in so the first minute feels smooth.
Felt Board Story Time
Tell stories using felt pieces on a board or wall.
Activity details
Instructions
- Use a felt board or stick felt pieces to carpet/furniture
- Cut simple shapes from felt: animals, people, sun, trees, houses
- Start a simple story: 'Once there was a little bear...'
- Place the bear on the board
- Let toddler add pieces as you tell the story
- Ask questions: 'What should happen next?'
- Retell familiar stories (Three Little Pigs, Goldilocks)
- Let them 'read' the story back to you using the pieces
What success looks like
A few quiet minutes together without pressure. If your child relaxes even slightly, that’s self-regulation building.
Interactive storytelling that builds language skills and keeps toddlers engaged with books. Moving felt pieces while narrating a story combines tactile and verbal learning, helping children remember vocabulary and story structure. It also encourages early creativity as toddlers begin adding their own twists to familiar tales and eventually create original stories of their own.
Why it helps
Moving felt pieces while narrating combines tactile and verbal learning, helping children remember vocabulary and story structure. Choosing what happens next builds creative thinking, and retelling stories strengthens memory and early literacy skills. The National Literacy Trust highlights that the foundations of reading start long before children pick up a book — through exactly this kind of language-rich play.
Variations
- Make felt pieces based on a favourite picture book and retell the story together.
- Use the felt board as a maths tool — add and remove animals to practise counting.
- Create a felt weather chart and update it together each morning.
Safety tips
- Ensure felt pieces are large enough not to be a choking hazard.
- If using a wall-mounted board, secure it firmly so it cannot fall.
- Supervise use of scissors if cutting new felt shapes together.
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