I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie

If we all thought long enough, we could all write a story about what an old lady swallowed, but for this, not really flannelboard, I used I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie by Alison Jackson. Unfortunately due to no-shows and scheduling changes I have never actually gotten to use this "flannelboard", but I have several ideas on how to present it. My original plan was to use a doll/puppet the library had gotten that went along with I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly, then I found a giant lady made out of cardboard with a clear tummy, at the main branch, but she was almost as tall as me and the pieces of food I made where pretty small comparatively speaking. I have since moved and don't work with that library system anymore, so I am making my own combination doll & cardboard lady, of a slightly smaller size, to sit in my lap while I tell the story. If you don't have an old lady, or time to make one, you can just put the food up on the flannelboard as you read the story, or even hand it out to the kids before and let come up each time she eats something. I had memorized the story and wasn't planning on even using the book, just the old lady and the food.

To create the food from the story I goggled the food images, printed them out the size I wanted, then traced and colored them in myself, so they would all match (I have a thing about stuff matching). But it could be done much quicker if you just used the goggled images, or you could even look for pictures of the food in magazines or grocery story circulars. I also briefly though of trying to find plastic food for a kid's play kitchen to use with the doll/puppet. Here is the food I made:

Below is the old lady I have made, she is still a work in progress – I plan to give her arms & legs and I need to come up with something a bit more sturdy than a piece of laminate film, to cover the whole in her tummy (any suggestions would be welcomeJ). She is made out of foam core, wrapped in a piece of flannel fabric and hot glued to the back. I goggled the image for her face, enlarged it and glued it to another piece of foam core, then I accessorized a bit. For her legs, I stuffed an old pair of socks and am going to try and make some shoes by putting a pair of black ankle socks over the foot part and giving them laces or a bow to make them look like shoes. For her arms, I am on the lookout for an old pair of white gloves to stuff.

I can hide all the food she ate by taping it to her back, then as I tell the story I will move the food to the clear window in her tummy so everyone can see what she ate. It gets a little crowded as the story goes on, but whose tummy wouldn't get a little crowded if they ate a whole turkey, the cooking pot and an entire cake for goodness sake!

Happy Thanksgiving – don't eat too much, and save some of the pie for others! J