Dress the Bear

[3swirls]

Hey everyone. I work with little ones from 18 months to 2 1/2. I really want to make a life size teddy bear for the kids to dress up and learn about clothes ( shirt, pants, hat, shoes, etc.). Anyways, I want to make a big bear to hang on the wall and then make clothes to put on the bear but I'm not sure how to make something that will stand the hands of toddlers. I'm thinking felt or cover everything in contact paper? But if I use contact paper what is the best way to get the clothes to stick to the bear and be easily removed? does anyone have any suggestions or ideas they have seen or tried?

[Michael]

Welcome to the Daycare.com Forum! I've upgraded your status. You can post freely now.

If you make the bear out of thin plastic (1/8th inch) is should be sturdy. I would use velcro unless you wanted to make it permenant. Likewise you could make the cloths out of thin plastic sheets which should be easy to color and cut. You could use one small velcro point on the top back of each section.

[Meyou]

You could use felt. Felt clothes would stick to a felt bear.

[3swirls]

Thanks for the ideas. Velcro sounds easy. I never used felt though....does it just stick to itself or does it need anything? Can I just cut out the pieces and stick them on? I just afraid the little ones will grab the felt and rip it up or eat it

[Meyou]

Felt won't rip but it can stretch if it's pulled alot. You can solve that problem by gluing two layers together. Felt sticks to felt without anything else. Just google felt boards for billions of ideas.

FTR I have 5 felt boards and hundreds of felt pieces (most are not doubled) and I've only had 2 pieces destroyed ever. They were wrecked by a 3 year old that I ended up terming for a multitude of behavior problems.

[3swirls]

Thanks! I have another question now. I noticed in the other they have those felt sheets you can buy for like 25cents. Then I saw flannel too. Is there a difference? Does the felt stick to flannel?