Flannel Friday: It Fell in the City

Today's Flannel Friday post was inspired by a read-aloud session with my daughter. Since she was born, I've been reading poems to her from Read-Aloud Rhymes for the Very Young. There is a section near the end of the book with a bunch of winter poems, and as I read "It Fell in the City" by Eve Merriam, that old familiar lightbulb went off in my mind, telling me that this would make a great flannel board. 

I discovered that, thanks to Highlights magazine, the text of the poem is available online. Click here to read it, or to listen to the audio version. The basic concept is that snow falls all night, turning each of the familiar objects out on the street from its original color to white. The poem actually never states that what fell in the city was snow, which throws in a nice guessing game component for story time audiences. 

I created a simple Google Drive presentation to demonstrate how I might share this poem as a flannel board. If I were really planning to use it in a story time, I'd probably do my best to make the pieces out of actual felt, as I think it would be much easier - and more logical - to create snow-covered objects using white felt  than it was to recolor everything in Microsoft Paint. I also included a final slide showing just snowflakes. I would ask the kids at the end of the poem to tell me what they think fell in the city, and then after they all hopefully called out, "Snow!" I'd show them the snowflakes to confirm they were correct.

Here is what the presentation looks like:  

This poem would work well for a snow, weather, or winter theme, as well as a city theme, or a poetry theme. It could even be included in an author study of Eve Merriam.

This week's Flannel Friday host is Anna from Future Librarian Superhero. For more on Flannel Friday, visit the official website. Look for more Winter ideas on the Flannel Friday Winter Pinterest board.