Recently I participated in my county’s Toddler/Kid Fest, where local libraries, day cares, and other agencies that serve children have tables with information and activities. I wanted to share something fun and interactive, so I settled on a song with a puppet and flannel board. I saw the idea for this Mary Had a Little Lamb flannel and made it out of felt with a puppet we had.

This worked so, so well for this kind of event. I used the puppet to greet the kids as they came around to my table, introduced her as Mary, and started singing the song, ending by pulling one sheep out of the bucket and putting it up on the board. “Sheep as blue as blueberries?!? Is that how the song goes? No? Let’s try it again.”

The puppet helped engage the shy kids, who were a little apprehensive at so many tables full of strangers, and being able to improv the lyrics and change the length was really nice when the ages ranged from around one to eight.

I’d repeat it with different sheep, putting them up one at a time on my portable flannel, for as long as they seemed engaged, and end on the white one. With older kids, I asked them to help my come up with lyrics for the different colors, or improv based on what they were wearing, which is how we ended up with “Sheep as red as lava” and “Sheep as red as Spiderman.”