Flannel Friday: Evolution of a Flannel Board: Vincent's Vests

Adding a letter of the day to my large drop-in story times was something I did to make life easier. Sometimes, though, the activities I do for a certain letter the first time around just don't satisfy me, and I'm left looking for new ideas. That's what happened with the letter V. What follows is the road I took from inspiration to finished product, as I created a flannel board called "Vincent's Vests."

First, I thought I'd just throw together a simple song based on Daddy's Ties. Instead of Daddy, we'd sing about Vincent, and instead of ties, Vincent would wear vests. That concept looked like this:

But would the kids be able to tell where a vest is actually worn? Would they be creeped out by Vincent's lack of arms? What was the point of having sleeves if no one could  tell where the arms went?

I decided to add some arms.

This was an improvement, but still not quite enough. Now it looked like he was wearing a vest with nothing underneath it, which is not really how we wear vests. To make things a little more realistic, I created a tee shirt for Vincent to wear under his  vest.

Better? Definitely. But still...

What if Vincent had a full outfit? Then I could always add to it later on, and with a few different faces and some arms with different skin tones, I'd basically have a full set of flannel board paper dolls. I decided to give it  a shot.

I was all set to go into story time with this version. Just one final problem. Vincent didn't have a neck! In Publisher, I quickly drew a little rectangle, then I printed it out and colored it to match Vincent's face and arms. I stuck it on the flannel board behind Vincent's head and under his tee shirt.

Finally, Vincent was finished!

When I took him to story time, this is how he looked:

And then we sang... 

Vincent wore his yellow vest, yellow vest, yellow vest

Vincent wore his yellow vest all day long. 

 Vincent wore his green vest, green vest, green vest

Vincent wore his green vest all day long.  

  Vincent wore his red vest, red vest, red vest

Vincent wore his red vest all day long. 

  Vincent wore his blue vest, blue vest, blue vest

Vincent wore his blue vest all day long.  

  Vincent wore his brown vest, brown vest, brown vest

Vincent wore his brown vest all day long. 

The kids were totally fascinated by this flannel board. I think they liked the fact that Vincent was so big that we had to turn the flannel board on its side to play with him. 

Want to make your own version of Vincent's Vests? Here are links to the images I used for his various pieces: 

• Face
• Vest
• Tee Shirt
• Arms 
• Shoes 
• Pants

Some of them - especially the pants - need to be resized in Publisher or Word to make them look as they do in my photos. The pants needed to be widened, then cut very short. The shoes are also a bit large and need to be shrunk down.

This week's Flannel Friday round-up is hosted by Storytime Katie.