Felt Watermelon Seed Counting Activity for Preschoolers

In an attempt to collect and make some fun felt board activities for my daughter I began gathering ideas.  I have a felt board book of stories that includes how to make the characters, I found things on Pinterest, etc, and there’s even a website that includes printables for felt board activities (http://www.dltk-kids.com/type/felt_board.htm).

I was bored by the printables on felt because they lacked dimension.  I love the storyboard book, though I was having difficulty locating a key component to create the characters. I’m not very crafty, understand very little about felt and pieces that work with it, and sales people at craft places don’t seem versed in the things to use for a felt board either.  That left me pretty much on my own to figure out what I was going to do.

So, after gathering some ideas from across the net, I made my first handmade felt board activity – a watermelon seed counting activity!  Because I was just figuring it out as I went, I didn’t take pictures of the process, so my apologies for the lack of pics to follow.

DIY Felt Watermelon Seed Counting Activity

*Disclaimer: Affiliate links are included in this post

Supplies

[easyazon_link identifier=”B003O9B1G6″ locale=”US” nw=”y” nf=”y” tag=”ivsvabasaan0a-20″ cart=”n” cloak=”n” localize=”y” popups=”n”]Green Felt[/easyazon_link]

[easyazon_link identifier=”B0033LUXJQ” locale=”US” nw=”y” nf=”y” tag=”ivsvabasaan0a-20″ cart=”n” cloak=”n” localize=”y” popups=”n”]Red Felt[/easyazon_link]

[easyazon_link identifier=”B001IZG0HS” locale=”US” nw=”y” nf=”y” tag=”ivsvabasaan0a-20″ cart=”n” cloak=”n” localize=”y” popups=”n”]Black Felt[/easyazon_link]

[easyazon_link identifier=”B005Z463A2″ locale=”US” nw=”y” nf=”y” tag=”ivsvabasaan0a-20″ cart=”n” cloak=”n” localize=”y” popups=”n”]Aleene’s Original Tacky Glue[/easyazon_link]

Making Felt Watermelons

I took a large paper circle and rough cut red felt around the edge of the paper, then cut the circles in half.  I did this until I had 10 halves.  Next, I cut out green circles a hair larger than the red and cut those in half until I had 10 halves.  I, then, cut the edge off the green circles to make the watermelon rind.

Glue the green rinds to the red watermelons using [easyazon_link identifier=”B005Z463A2″ locale=”US” nw=”y” nf=”y” tag=”ivsvabasaan0a-20″ cart=”n” localize=”y” popups=”n”]Aleene’s Original Tacky Glue[/easyazon_link], just on top of the edges of the red watermelon pieces.

Finally, I took a black piece of felt and cut little watermelon seeds, totally free hand, of various sizes and glued them on with the tacky glue.  Each watermelon piece has its own number of watermelon seeds, the first one with 1 seed, the last one with 10.

Here’s baby girl enjoying the final product (though still too young to grasp the full concept of counting).

You could also use this activity to teach other math concepts like half and whole, or addition and subtraction.  And, what child doesn’t love playing with felt?