Flannel Friday: Five Snowmen

This is the very first flannel that I made (and yes, back then I did use flannel).  The lady I was hired to replace left me with a classic rhyme (I have seen many different versions, so I am not quite sure who to credit here).  My version goes like this:

Five snowmen fat.
Each with a black top hat.
Out came the sun and melted one,
Down, down, down.
Four snowmen fat!

Then you repeat until all the snowmen are melted and there are no snowmen fat.  The most important part of this rhyme comes when you say the word 'fat.'  You have to puff out your cheeks and smush them in with your hands so that you get a nice 'Ppppffffttttt' sound :)  The kids go bananas.

Anyway, I heard this rhyme and decided that I wanted a flannel to go with it, so I rigged up a melting snowman flannel.  It is really rather easy.  There is no template, sorry, but I have made several and it is not hard at all.

Simply make 5 flannel snowmen (you have to use flannel, or at least fabric here for the melting effect - fur might be cool?) and make a background.  I found a great dark blue sparkly sky and added some snow to the ground.

Next, you need to attach a string to the back of each snowman's head.  I took a small piece of flannel and hot glued yarn between that and the back of the head.

Then, you hot glue the bottom of the snowman (the outer edges of half of the largest ball) to the background.  Make sure to keep the yarn out of the way.  Once they are dried fold them down and poke a hole in the background as low as you can reach behind the snowman.  (You could poke the hole before gluing the snowman on.)  Then, poke the string through the hole and you are done!  I did add a small piece of velcro to the back of the snowmen heads to help hold them up (the sparkly felt is not very 'clingy').  I also added some velcro to the back of the board to keep the strings hidden.  Originally they just came out the bottom, but that ended with all the kids wanting to pull it.

This is a really popular flannel board at our library.  It is one of the ways that I have managed to start a toddler mosh pit :)  Also, be prepared to let the kids play with it after story time. 

I have also used this method to make squirrels climb trees and butterflies pop out of cocoons (I'll post those too someday! )

If you want to see past Flannel Friday posts you can look for this week's Round Up at Rain Makes Applesauce, find a list of past Round Ups at So Tomorrow, or search for them on Pinterest.