Flannel Friday: Fat Cat

And I'm back. One new FancyPhone and picture taking capabilities later, I've got some Flannel Friday catching up to do. Let's start with a prop story that I made for my Denmark story time, way back when my library system was celebrating the European Union (oh, there's an Ireland one coming up, don't you worry.)

The story of the Fat Cat is a pretty standard Scandinavian tale. Basically, one animal eats a lot of stuff you wouldn't expect it to be able to. This prop goes along with Margaret McDonald's version, and it goes something like this...

Once there was a cat who was always hungry. This cat was made out of poster board with a clear stomach (one side of a gallon ziplock bag and a paper bag taped behind it). His mouth was also a hole, which can be hard to see with the black background.

On his back he had 3 dots of velcro that helped him stay on the board and keep the path from the mouth to the bag open.

This cat went around eating everything he could get his greedy little paws on. In this case it was photocopies of the books illustrations, blown up and glued onto heavy cardboard.

And when the cat ate the pieces, they showed up down in his stomach!

This one was a huge hit with the toddlers who just wanted to stuff every single piece down the cat's mouth at once. To that end I would recommend reenforcing the mouth area and if at all possible laminating the smaller pieces. I normally like to leave flannels out for kids to play with after story time but I quickly had to take this one away for fear of it getting utterly destroyed.

And there you have it. Oh it feels good to be back. Flannel Friday is being hosted this week by Cate at Storytiming. If you're interested in learning more about Flannel Friday or browsing past editions, check out the official website!