Flannel stories are such simple and cute ways to express a story through a different medium. Children and their families love seeing a favorite story come to life using felts and other material.
For storytellers though, it can be hard to keep all the pieces together and easily accessible during the planning process.
In the Library where the Stay at Home Librarians worked there were up to six storytellers, each creating their own flannel stories. It because hard to keep everything organized. There were so many duplicates of stories it became a time waster.
Here is how we managed to keep these wonderful works of art organized and used over and over again.
We purchased these clear folder pouches from Amazon, printed labels that have a line for the story title, number of pieces, and if there is a story card (Y/N). These hold a lot of pieces and can be easily filed in a large file drawer designed for legal paper.
Currently, these flannels are housed on a book shelf near the the storytime books so it is easier to access and plan our storytimes.
The clear pouches are easy for storytellers to see what is inside, if they are missing any pieces, and can keep all the pieces not being used safe during the reading.
While many use envelopes we noticed that we plan with our eyes. We love just looking through the flannel collection and planning a storytime around a favorite story. The storytellers also noticed the collection is used a lot more now because we can peer inside without having to open everything up to check if all the pieces are there.
You can also use Ziploc bags and other clear bags but we noticed that they are too flimsy. These clear pouches were worth what we spent in our storytime budget. We were also able to purchase more for our growing collection.
Happy organizing.
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