Beach Math Flannel Board

This flannel board set is one of many great resources my mother-in-law saved from when her children were young. She has given us use of anything we want out of her many boxes of materials, and we're loving it! 

While I know that most of you don't have access to such a treasure trove, that doesn't mean you can't find a way to do something like this at home. You could make something like our Weather Counting Wall in just about any theme you can dream up and draw. You could use felt and fabric paint to make your own flannel board set. OR, I did the research and found this exact flannel set for sale on this neat website. You're welcome.

We sorted all the different objects (classification) by type and counted how many there were of each. 

We made up little stories about the different children and the things they brought to or saw at the beach, then counted the total number of objects (beginning addition). We made up similar stories for some basic subtraction (Bob saw three fish, but then one swam away. How many are left?)

 Mostly we just played with this and had fun. Erik loves to help make up stories (creative expression) about anything, so we had a lot of fun just imagining what all the felt boys and girls were doing at the beach. Not every story had math involved, but some did.

 My favorite part of this was when my hubby walked in the door for his lunch break and saw the beach scene stuck to the back of our couch (because I don't have a real flannel board to stick these to, but the couch works great). He was SO surprised to see this relic from his childhood sitting in our living room.
The best part? Erik loved this and would happily play with it every day.