Where I Aut-a Be

Teaching tips, ideas, and resources for Special Education

DIY Visual Support Felt-Boards

My special education classroom relies heavily on visual supports. In order to offer more accessible visual supports during my small group reading instruction, I created these mini felt board to organize all of the pieces! They work like a charm in order to keep all the visuals tidy without loosing my mind! I can also tell that my students don’t get overwhelmed by the plethora of pieces. I’ve listed the steps to create these visual support boards below!

Here are the pieces you will need: 8×10 plastic frames from Walmart, felt, and velcro strips (or a hot glue gun)

STEP 1

Clean the surface of your frame and remove the photo insert it comes with.

DIY felt-board for visual supports. Image featuring a horizontal 8x10 plastic frame from Walmart

STEP 2

Add a piece of SOFT velcro to each of the front corners of the frame. The more velcro you add, the more supported the felt will be. I tend to use the rule of “soft stays, hard travels”. The soft pieces of velcro will always stay rooted and the hard pieces of velcro will go onto any pieces that travel or pull away.

DIY felt-board for visual supports. Image featuring placing soft sided velcro on the frame

STEP 3

Add a hard piece of velcro on the outer corners of your felt. Make sure that they are located in the same general area of where you placed the soft pieces of velcro.

DIY felt-board for visual supports. Image featuring hard sided velcro on felt

STEP 4

Press the felt onto the frame. Make sure your pieces are aligned! I like to push the felt into the frame and hold it for a few seconds to make sure everything is nice and stuck.

DIY felt-board for visual supports. Image featuring felt being reinforced onto plastic frame

STEP 5

Add your moveable pieces or visual supports onto your mini felt board and bring it on over to your small group table! Now you can interchange any of those visuals and keep them displayed. They are at eye level, neat, and best of all…not on your classroom floor!

DIY felt-board for visual supports. Image featuring visual supports organized onto felt board

Mini Felt Board Ideas

Here are a few other things we use mini felt boards for: task box pieces to stay organized during independent work, reading comprehension boards, and sequencing story pictures! My favorite way to use felt boards is for reading comprehension. I like to group visuals onto a felt board by category! When asking who, what, and where questions, I will have a “who board” a “what board” and a “where board”. This can help your students keep information organized while keeping the visual supports available and accessible.

Be sure to check out my other sped teachers tips and tricks!

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