Felt projects and activities for kids are timeless.
They can be crafts to encourage fine motor skills or activities for language development, story telling and more!
You can choose to start a felt project with your little one or you can purchase pre-made felt sets that are similar to magnet boards that encourage language development through theme based vocabulary.
Felt Projects For Kids +Bonus!
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If you are crafty and are looking for some felt projects that you can do with your child, take a look at some of these!
Projects such as the ones listed below are not only wonderful for speech and language development but they will also help with your child’s fine motor skill development.
After these 6 projects, you will find some information on how to use pre-made felt sets for language building activities.
Or just head to that section right now by clicking here.
Felt Dolphin Bookmark
This is dolphin bookmark is adorable and you could use this idea to make ornaments as well!.
Head over to Activity Village for full instructions.
Speech/Language Tips
Talk to your child about dolphins.
For example, where do they live?
What do they eat?
Would you want to swim with dolphins?
Shamrock Pencil Topper
What a cute idea for St. Patrick’s Day!
You can find the directions for this felt project at Free Kids Crafts.
Speech/Language Tips
Depending on the age of your child you can either discuss St. Patrick’s day and why people celebrate it.
Or talk about clovers and shamrocks.
What color are they?
Where can we find them?
Why do they symbolize St. Patrick’s day? etc.
No Sew Library Card Pouch
This is very simple but it does involve a hot glue gun.
Head over to Misformonster for full instructions.
Speech/Language Tips
This pouch is quite versatile.
It can be a wallet that can be used at a pretend play store or it can store pirate treasure or jewels.
Whatever your child decides it will be used for can open up a world of pretend play and language skill building.
You could also make it larger and it could be used as a purse!
Kiwi Bird
This one is a bit more complicated as it will require sewing with small stitches.
It is very similar to the dolphin bookmark and you probably could turn this one into a bookmark just like the other one!
The full instructions can be found at Activity Village!
Speech/Language Tips
The tips here are very similar to what I mentioned in the dolphin project.
Talk to your child about birds, in particular the Kiwi Bird.
Where is it from?
How big is it in real life?
What does it eat? etc.
You can also talk about the supplies you will need to make this craft.
Discuss adjectives such as soft, sharp, rough, thin, pointy, etc.
Toy Monster
You can find out how to make this little guy at Activity Village (they have lots of great craft ideas for kids).
Monsters don’t have to be scary, so have fun with this kids felt project!
Speech/Language Tips
Talk to your child about monsters.
Ask if he thinks they are real or not real and why.
Give your monster a name.
Talk about what color he should be.
As with the other felt crafts discuss the materials that will be needed.
Lost Tooth Pillow
This great idea comes courtesy of DLTK Kids!
They are a great resource for craft ideas, coloring pages and theme based learning.
I used to use this site a lot for materials in my Speech-Language practice.
They also give no sew directions for this which is great if you want your kids to be more involved and they are too young to sew.
No Sew Felt Puppets
These puppets are easy enough for younger children to make with the guidance of an older sibling or adult.
You will need to pre-cut the materials (for a young child) and then assist your child to glue the pieces together.
You can find the directions courtesy of 30 Minute Crafts!
Speech/Language Tips
Puppets are wonderful for speech and language development.
Use these puppets for storytelling and putting on a puppet show.
Your child can get into character and pretend to be a cat, bear or pig!
Practice making different voices for each character.
There are many adventures they can go on.
Why not add to the fun by making a cardboard puppet theater or purchase a pre-made one like the one below.
I love this puppet theater because it’s so easy to put away. If you are really crafty you could probably make this one yourself.
These are just a few of my favorite felt projects and crafts that you can do with kids.
If you do a google search, you will be bound to find many more.
Kids Felt Crafts and Language Development
If you are making your own felt creations, there are many opportunities for fine motor development (cutting, pasting, sewing, gluing, coloring, etc), however where there is the chance to practice fine motor skills, there is also the opportunity to practice speaking!
When I was practicing as a Speech-Language Pathologist, I often worked side by side with an Occupational Therapist.
While the Occupational Therapist worked on cutting, for example, I would work on the vocabulary aspect.
Let’s take making a felt bird as an example.
First, you can ask your child what supplies they think will be needed to complete the craft.
If your child is unable to answer, give some options and remind them what needs to be done (e.g. cutting the felt, gluing on eyes, perhaps adding some sparkles, sewing the pieces together).
So, you could ask “we need to cut the felt, what do you think we could use to do that?”.
You can also talk about what the finished product will be, in this case, a felt bird.
Talk about some different kinds of birds, find out where they live, what they eat and what color they might be.
You can easily spend an hour talking about birds while making your craft.
Keep in mind that the language used should be tailored to your child’s level.
If your child is young or has a language delay, you will want to stick with more concrete vocabulary (bird, beak, feathers, eyes, wings, fly, etc) and if your child is older or has a better grasp of the language and vocabulary, go beyond the basics!
But remember to keep it fun.
Felt Activities For Kids
There are so many ready made felt activity packs available to purchase.
They are an amazing tool for young children to practice language skills in a fun way.
One company I particular love is Playtime Felts which are based in the US (NOTE: They have not paid for nor endorsed this article)
Many teachers, Speech-Language Pathologists and homeschooling parents use Playtime Felts to enhance the curriculum.
I love Playtime Felts because they have theme based story boards.
As you can see in the picture below, they offer a large variety of themes (including both secular and biblical).
Playtime Felts For Language Development
Each themed set also comes with a story which is a wonderful way to help children work on memory and language recall skills.
And, rather than just telling back a story, they can make it come to life with the felt pieces.
Most children are visual learners, so having the felt pieces in hand can help them remember the vocabulary.
You and your child can also create your own stories with the felts.
Or if you have more than one set, you can work on sorting the pieces into their respective categories.
These felt sets are also great to target prepositions such as “in, on, under, over, above, below”.
For example, if using the community workers set, you could ask your child to “put the chef on the post office”.
Make your direction silly so that your child can’t predict where things should go.
Alternatively, you could ask your child to give you directions.
Children love getting the chance to be the teacher!
Most of the sets require some cutting, so your child can still work on fine motor skills as well.
One Thing To Note
You may need to purchase a felt playmat separately as they do not come with every set.
Or you can make your own felt playmat by purchasing a large piece of felt and use it as the background.
Playtime felts has some great sets that come with playmats.
Like this large animal themed that comes with 3 separate playmats for various different animal habitats as well as 4 different animal boards (total of 54 characters).
Final Thoughts
Felts offer a great learning opportunity for children!
If your child has a language delay, felts can help expand their vocabulary.
If your child does not have a language delay, use felts to encourage story telling and expanding their current vocabulary.
And of course if you are doing crafts with felts like the projects above, your child will get a chance to work on some fine motor skills.
Have you created any felt projects with your child or have you used any theme based felt sets?
Would you want to add felts to your child’s “toy” collection?
Please share your thoughts in the comments!
Hi, Tanya.
Thanks for sharing felt projects and activities for kids. I still remember how I helped my first daughter in her pre school days to learn the activities through fun. Few of her felt books and games are still kept by us till now. As the time passed and technology evolved, few things are lost with time. It was quite heart warming to learn that people like you are still involved with the kid activities which are so natural and fun.
Warm Regards,
Gaurav Gaur
Thanks Gaurav! I’m glad that the article brought back fond memories for you.
Hi Tanya! These are some great quick projects to do with your kids, I especially like the blue monster felt project. My little cousin has autism and loud noises and lots of people make him have episodes and shut down. I think a nice quiet and engaging activity like making these felt projects would work wonders for the kid. Thanks for the ideas!
Trying these out with your cousin who has autism is a great idea! Depending on his age and fine motor skills you may have to help quite a bit. But the pre-made felt sets are wonderful for language development!
LOVE this page!!! Being a fan of kids but not having any of my own, I enjoy learning about these activities and how they’re being applied to education and given uses beyond just “toys!”
I have a special place for the dolphin since my goal career all through Elementary to High School was that of a dolphin trainer (I ended up being a dog trainer, so close! 😉) Maybe use the dolphin to introduce an idea for a career path that’s less often thought of than more traditional ones. Also, discuss dolphins in captivity and pros and cons associated (would be great in conjunction with a trip to Sea World or another aquarium with dolphins!)
As for the shamrock, I had the idea of adding a backyard hunt for the elusive four-leaf clover while fondly remembering my own childhood hunts for the same! You can attempt to explain in simple terms why the extra leaf sometimes happens and what makes them “special,” “rare,” or harder to find, which is why some people consider them to be lucky. That could stimulate a discussion about luck and if the child believes in good/bad luck, and why.
I like the pouch also for holding a type of currency (bingo chips, plastic coins, little jewels) that can be earned through good behavior or completion of chores or tasks (different tasks earn lower or higher numbers of the currency.) Then a little “store” can be set up for the child in which currency can be exchanged for rewards of various value to the child. That could lead to discussions and lessons about savings, why it may be beneficial to save longer for an item of higher value rather than immediately spending on smaller, less-valuable rewards, and the basic “working hard to earn the things we want/nothing in life is free” life lessons!
The Kiwi can be an intriguing intro into a discussion about other real-world animals that might be more “funny-looking” or “odd” and what makes them special is the fact that they’re different and unique!
Finally, I love the Monster to reinforce that monsters don’t have to be scary! They can be creative and fun! Also, this could tie into the lesson that just because they look different doesn’t make them bad or outcast, but quite the contrary; the fact that they are so unique and different-looking makes them special because there’s no other monster exactly the same! You could have lots of fun with this!
Now you have me wanting to play with my niece and nephew!!! 😁❤ These are really great and I hope I added some of what you might have been looking for! Best of luck, that was a lot of fun!
Thanks so much for your comment Jackie! I’m sure many readers will love the extra information you provided. Your suggestions are great. You sound like you could be a teacher!
Wow, these felt ideas are so cool! I love especially those pencil toppers, my kids would be so proud of them at school! I also love the dolphin bookmark, it might motivate them to read more. I always try to use DIY ideas in order to make my kids more excited about everything involving school and learning activities (kids are usually not big fan of those, as far as I know). So I actually think the ideas you gave me are going to help even more.
Your kids won’t even realize they are learning with these fun felt activities! Let me know how it goes.
Hey Tanya, I’m so sorry I did not find your website sooner! You have some excellent ideas and tips for kids and I have 2 grandchildren that are always looking for new activities. I guess I just found the next fun time activity for the next time they visit me. I just love those no-sew felt puppets, my grandchildren love playing with puppets but we usually buy them ready made. This time I will have them create some and I’m sure they’re going to be more than excited. I’m definitely going to be following that tutorial from 30 Crafts and I will let you know in case we need any help.
For sure let me know how those no sew puppets turn out! I’m sure your grand kids will love making felt crafts with you!
I love this post! So many good ideas for felt projects that the kids will enjoy their playtime creating. Not only do these instill creativity in kids they also include tactile elements that will help with hand/eye coordination, building skills, etc.
Your background tells me that you were “cut out” for this business (no pun intended) and it is projects such as these that will keep the kids entertained for hours. I raised two daughters long ago (now helping a bit with 6 grandchildren) and these are the kinds of things indoors that I like(d) to do with them.
These days parents are too quick to hand the kids over to handheld learning devices (which have their use, so not get me wrong), but the benefits of spending time with the kids doing these activities cannot be discounted. The conversations you can generate surrounding the projects are as valuable if not more so. Really enjoyed reading this and thanks!
Thanks Dave! Glad you liked the article. Many parents tend to go to more complex activities when they think of their child learning. But for young children the simpler something is the better. In fact there are more and more studies showing that screen use for children under 6 is actually detrimental and may be the cause of young kids having more language and self regulation difficulties.
Hi Tanya, what a great site! I love these felt projects and how you weave in learning with them. I would imagine they are very helpful for kids with tactile sensitivities too. I am a homeschooling mom and would have loved to know about these when my kids were younger. I love hands-on learning!
Hi Katie,
Thanks for your comment. Glad you liked the felt activities I shared.
I most definitely need a way to interact and spend time with my toddlers other than watching Peppa Pig and Team Umizoomi. More one on two time and the fact that they will be learning more is helpful for me. Reading this article also let me know for me specifically scheduling is key. Very helpful
Thanks for your comment DeAnna. Sometimes in today’s busy world we need to make sure we schedule time in for our children so that they aren’t left in front of the TV or other electronic devices! But also give your children the time to play independently. It doesn’t always have to be about learning as learning happens spontaneously through exploration and discovery!
But for an activity to do with your children, felts or the kits from Playtime Felts are a lot of fun!
Tanja! This is a great idea! I have a son who has ADD and getting him to focus on anything for a long period of time is a bit of a hassle. He is extremely smart he just wants to do everything at one time! One of these sets or any of the projects that you recommended would be great because they are quick to do and he would be able to see a finished project when completed. (In comparison to a lot of crafts where you have to wait a couple of hours or a day.) The other awesome thing about your article is that you talk about how with older children you could end up talking about birds for a whole hour without them even knowing! This is right on topic for my son. He loves to learn different facts about everything so that means that he would be able to learn a lot of facts while having a completed project. Thanks for all the information! You are amazingly helpful, I will be bookmarking your page!
Yes, these felt crafts and the playtime felt activities should hold your son’s attention. I love the activity boards for their story telling potential. You can come up with with different story each time. If you decide to try any of the felt projects or activities please let me know how your son did with them.
I have a terrible time getting my kids to do any sort of craft. These projects are adorable and make me tempted to try again. I am not so great with crafts myself which likely has not helped them in developing an interest. There are great benefits to these activities, as you have mentioned. My daughter, in particular, gets very frustrated when things don’t turn out perfect. Any recommendations on how to handle that? I would love to try the monster with her but am afraid it would be a battle rather than fun.
I know what you mean about struggling to do crafts. Honestly, crafts are not one of my favorite activities to do with kids either, however, my children love doing crafts. These quick and easy felt projects that I listed are a great way for the non-crafter to get started because they are pretty mess free. I know many people who avoid crafts because of the mess and clean up involved.
My daughter also gets frustrated when things aren’t perfect. It really depends on the age of the child to know how to handle the situation. If your daughter is older (6+), I would explain to her that it takes practice in order for something to look great. I always use an example of something my daughter loves to do and practices all the time. In her case it is cartwheels. She practices non stop and is great at them. So when she gets frustrated with something I remind her that with practice she will get good. I then point out that if she didn’t practice her cartwheels daily she would not be able to do the perfect cartwheel.
Hope that helps!
Awe too cute. I’m also an educational professional and a mom whose son did speech therapy when he was age 7. So I like how you combine a fun craft any child would want to do with speech and motor skills. I can use these with my 6th graders. Thank you.
Thank for your comment. You can definitely do these quick and easy felt projects with your students. Since they are older they will be able to work on them more independently. I would love to see some pictures of theirs I all creations if you wouldn’t mind sharing!
I think your felt project ideas are great and create an interactive learning environment. Having fun during learning engages children more and encourages them to want to learn. I especially liked your idea on asking questions and language development. Many people don’t realize the importance of communicating with children regularly and how this helps with their speech and overall development.
Thanks for your comment Tami! You are right, involving your children in engaging conversation is very important for speech and language development, as well as social skills. Children learn from what they hear around them. This is why I encourage parent’s to stop baby talk once their child is over a year old!
Thanks Tanya. I’ll let you know when I’ve done this and you can go check it out : )
Hi Tanya
These projects are really great. It takes me back to when I was a child and making felt things. It goes to show that some things really do have a long life span. Any mom that wants to teach their child through play would benefit from this. I’m going to write a post on this on my site and if you don’t mind link this website to the post : )
Yes, felt crafts and projects are definitely timeless. I also loved working with felts as a child and now my children do as well. I don’t mind at all if you would like to write a post about felt projects on your site. You can also link back to my site.
Great article, in this technology driven world we live in today it is so easy to just let computers or any other electronic devices do the teaching for us parents. I’m not against progress but so much is lost when children don’t have the one on one human contact and interaction with a parent or loved one.
Thank you for your project ideas and all the other contents on your site.
I agree Jonathan. Our world is driven by technology but it is not necessarily a bad thing. A lot of good has come from technological advances. However, for a child to truly understand technology, they need to build strong foundations first. These foundations begin with human interaction.
I believe that as children grow up, technology can actually help them. You can read my thoughts on this here: Are There Benefits To Game Based Learning? My answer may surprise you!
Hi Tanya
I love your site and have now learned all about Felt projects. This is something I had never explored before. Though my children are grown up, I am planning to pass your website to my friends who have young children. I think that they will find the information on your site helpful. Amazing info and all the best to you!
I am happy to hear that you learned some valuable information about felt projects and kids that you will share with your friends. I plan to keep adding more relevant information to the site. I hope your friends will find it helpful!
These are lovely ideas. I am due to have some time off work soon with my 2 kids and some of these ideas would be great for rainy day activities.
I love the dolphin bookmark and I love that they are quick and easy.
Thanks, I will be coming back to this.
Thanks Paula, I agree, felt projects and crafts are a great rainy day activity. Make sure to check out the playdough recipe and activities. Also a lot of fun!
Basic Homemade Playdough Recipe
Fun Playdough Activities To Encourage Language
Hello Tanja,
I have four grandchildren and they are sprouting up so fast on me it is hard to find ways to connect with them so I came online and found your site.
I never thought of felt as a way to get involved with them and I see that even the little guys can get involved in this as long as you are there to help them.
I am going to go out and get some felt today and practice so I will be prepared when they come over next week, we get to keep them for a week and we are really looking forward to it and this is a great idea.
I will be bookmarking your page for more ideas to do with them.
Thanks,
The Fat Guy.
Hi,
You sound like a wonderful grandfather! It is great that you are so involved with the grandchildren. Felt projects for kids can be a lot of fun for the whole family. See where your imagination takes you!
Since you will have your grandchildren for a whole week, you should try making some playdough with them. I have a recipe and some activities you can do with playdoough on the site. Here are the links:
Basic Homemade Playdough Recipe
Fun Playdough Activities To Encourage Language
If you make the playdough, please let me know what you and the grandkids thought of it!
I loved the quick and easy felt projects for kids post and on how to work language thought out the activity.
I work with children to, and I’m always making them talk about what they’re doing, what they’re seeing, what they’re thinking… And correcting the misspelled words and the grammar.
Going to check your other posts!
Nice site!
Hi Ana,
I am glad that you enjoyed the post. It is great to get children to narrate their activities. Some do it naturally but others need a bit of help. If a child has a language delay then it becomes even more challenging.
Let me know what you think of my other posts. Feel free to leave a comment on some of the other articles, especially if you have any questions!
Hello Tanya, your site is good and helpful, I liked this post for kids. I was wondering what I can do with my son to distract him. He is now 8 months and is starting to get interested by whatever he sees. I think I will soon need these kind of activities with him. I have to bookmark your page.
Hi Charlotte,
Thanks for taking a look at my site and checking out the Quick and Easy Felt Projects for Kids article. I am sure in a few years your son will find felts a lot of fun. In the meantime, there are many other activities you can do with your son to keep him entertained as well as giving him a good foundation of early language skills.
I think the articles The Baby Peek A Boo Game: Why is it so important? and Blowing Bubbles With Kids: A great activity for language development! will be very helpful to you.
Let me know what you think about these.
What an interesting and informative post! I love the picture of the heart ornament – so clear and fitting to the topic. I will be recommending your website to friends I have that homeschool their small children. I am a spinner so when I saw this about felt – I was thinking about felting raw wool. And there I was – overthinking it!
Thanks for taking the time to read this post and for sharing this site with your friends that home school. I post a lot of info that should be of interest to home schooling parents. I think that The 6 Best Things About Lego Games and Activities For Kids would be of interest to many of them.
I am not familiar with felting with raw wool. It sounds very interesting.
I used to love making felt crafts as a kid, but would always be frustrated in how it was difficult to cut and sew with sometimes. Are there any scissors or shears you would recommend to go along with your craft supplies?
I wish that teachers (and parents) of children would use more handmade items in teaching things. Kids seem to just learn better when it’s that way, rather in being in front of a screen.
Do you have a resource for patterns and templates one can use for applicable arts and crafts like this? Thanks.
Hi Sarah,
I find that small craft scissors work best for felt projects. I buy them at craft supply stores. They are quite sharp so it’s best an adult use them when doing felt activities with young children. Unfortunately, I do not have any templates that I myself have come upwith, however a quick google search should bring up a lot of results.
Children definitely learn better during hands on activities. Children for the most part are visual and tactile learners. They need to see and feel things in order to learn effectively. This is especially true for children under the age of 3.
If you have any other questions don’t hesitate to ask.
I love, love, LOVE felt! I think they always look too cute and they’re also rather affordable. These remind me a lot of some activity books I had as a child, where characters were printed as a cling or decal and could be moved around on a plastic ‘world’. I would love to introduce my niece to Felt Projects. Thank you for this! 🙂
Hi Steph,
Yes, felts are just like those “cling on” activity books. I remeber having those as a child as well. We would come up with some pretty imaginative stories. Felts are fun because you can always go out and buy big pieces of felt and make your own characters and props to go along with some of the premadethemes that you can get from Playtime Felts.
I love this idea for kids. I often substitute for kindergarten and most of their toys are hard and I feel a bit unsafe. These are not only safe but educational. I can see how these could be used in show and tell also and bring a child out of his or her self. I will pass this information on.
Thanks Kirk! Felts like the ones offered by playtime felts are a great teaching tool to use in preschools and kindergarten classes. The children can safely play with them while still learning! And the great part is, the child doesn’t even realize that they are learning.
What lovely tips Tanya! Picked up a few new ones and others I didn’t realise I was naturally doing.
My grandies love coming to me as we usually do some sort of craft and they love it. We’ve made masks, slippers, owls… and of course they love story telling. Those playtime felts look like so much fun. Felt is soft and so colourful.
I can see how much they learn from it all as you say it’s a great way for their motor and language development.
Brigitte, thanks for your lovely comment. It is true, most people don’t realize that some of the things they are doing naturally are actually very helpful to their child’s development.
Kids love crafts as well as story telling and felts work well to achieve both of these goals!
It sounds like your grandchildren must have a great time with you.
I remember doing similar projects back in VBS during the summers of my youth. I like projects like this that are hands-on and help in learning. There are so many electronic teaching aids these days. There is a place for them, but I really think parents should encourage more activities like these felt projects. Thanks Tanja!
I completely agree with you about the electronics! This is one of the reasons why I have started this site. So many people think that their child will learn or even be smarter by watching “educational” shows or playing “educational apps” on various devices. There is a time and a place for these gadgets and yes, they can help with learning for an older child, but not so much with younger children.
Kids have so much fun making felt projects or just telling stories with felt cutouts!
Hi Tanya, I love this playtime felts idea. I’ve been wishing to make a felt board for my 2 year old nephew since a few months ago. Wanted to use it for story telling and play. Didn’t know that it can help for language development too! Thanks for sharing this!
Saber
Hi Saber,
Story telling and play are two of the best ways to encourage language development and learning new vocabulary. The great thing is that when you go about teaching language through play, the child doesn’t even realize that they are learning. Its best to keep it as natural as possible. Ditch the flash cards and just have fun!
I am a child care teacher and felt projects are great! You gave me some ideas that i have not thought of. Not just the projects either,but using language development along with the projects. I work with young children and am always working on using words with them. I will be checking out the playtime felts. They look really fun! My kids are very hands on so they would love this! Thanks.
Hi Liz,
I think because language and speaking is second nature to adults, we often forget how important it is to a developing child. You can incorporate new language opportunities into pretty much any activity. One of my favorites is blowing bubbles. If you do decide to try out the playtime felts, let me know what you think!