Write down a mathematical problem you want your students to study. For example, write "3+2+5=10." Think of a simple story to tell your students -- a story they can relate to. The story should be short and to the point and include the problem.
Draw each part of your problem on a storyboard template to have a draft that you can follow when you will do your presentation. Draw a maximum of five panels. For example, draw a park on the first panel with two children walking along a path. Draw three caterpillars on the second panel, and so on until the end of the story. Draw the children holding a basket on the fifth panel and draw all the insects mentioned before inside the basket.
Write down the words that will accompany the story. The first panel will say, "Two children were walking in a park when they saw many creepy crawly creatures." The second panel will say, "First, they saw three caterpillars eating a leaf. The children decided to collect them to show their classmates." The third panel will talk about collecting the two beetles, and so on an so forth until you write the whole story under your panels.
Cut a 2-yard by 2-yard piece of felt with scissors and hang it on the wall using pins. Choose a solid, dark color for the felt board to keep the background neutral and make the pieces of the story stand out. These pieces will be moved around during the lesson.
Print the storyboard pieces that will be in your story, such as, in our example, the two children, the three caterpillars, the leaf, the two beetles and the five worms as well as the basket and a few trees. They represent the problem: "3+2+5=10." Print everything on thick paper to make the models easier to trace around.
Cut around the storyboard model pieces with scissors. Put the models over pieces of felt and trace around them. Cut these felt story pieces. Use different colors of felt to represent the different groups of storyboard pieces. Changing colors make it easier for children to differentiate between groups. In our example, the groups are the types of insects we add together to find their sum.
Glue one side of a Velcro fastener on the back of each storyboard piece so that you can move the pieces around. You can also draw features on the felt with colored markers or cut pieces of felt of different colors and glue them on top of your storyboard pieces.