Braille for Breakfast

A couple weeks ago there was a meeting at Tommy's school for the parents of children who will be learning Braille. They had a table filled with books, puzzles and other Braille teaching aides. There were two teachers and five parents/family members so we got lots of time to ask questions about our children.

Is it breakfast or an opportunity to sort different shapes? Or both!

Many of the parents had questions about things our children come home from school taking about. Who is Mat Man? What does big lines and big curves mean? We found out that the Mat Man is a figure used in the Handwriting Without Tears curriculum that many teachers use. It's very appropriate for visually impaired children because it incorporates body awareness concepts, cooperation, organization and sequencing. When the lesson moves to handwriting the children who will be learning Braille simply learn Braille then. Some children in Tom's class have enough vision to learn print so they learn handwriting.

Children build a Mat Man character from shapes and sing a Mat Man song. Big lines and big curves, (and small lines, and small curves), all go together to build a Mat Man. Oh the times I have heard Tommy talk about big lines and big curves! He is into it!

It was just great to talk with Tom's teacher and with other parents of visually impaired and blind children. I was so nice to have someone to talk with about Braille and blindness. I learned a lot and came away with a better understanding of how they are getting Tom ready for Braille and how I can support that at home.

Right now Tom is obsessed with touching my face. I used to laugh about how on TV you see blind people touching some one's face. Blind people don't really do that!!! But now Tom can't stop touching my chin and saying, "this is my chin!"Then he moves on to the nose and so forth. I think I can safely blame that on Mat Man! Maybe blind children do touch faces but I think it's just a phase.

I came home from that meeting full of ideas. It made me think of new ways to interact with Tom and new toys and activities for him. Play is learning for kids so why not take advantage of that!

We drove straight to Virginia to visit my brother and his family after the Braille meeting. Tom tried some of his cousin's cereal there and it dawned on me that cereal can be a pre-Braille activity! I noticed that Tom was picking through the cereal and only eating the crunch berries. (He's no dummy!)

Look at those shapes just ready for sorting!

The ability to sort and identify things with your fingers is an important pre-Braille activity. And you can use different cereals to do it! This is cheap and you can mix different cereals together to play with different textures. I might get a timer and see if we can make a game of picking out as many berries as we can and then counting them. I'm not sure how Tom would react to a timer but it's worth a try.

It's always a bonus to me when Tom can eat his lesson. He puts everything in his mouth anyway!  I am planning on making some Christmas themed playing dough that is edible for that very reason. I can't get Tom to play with regular "Play Dough" at home because all he wants to do is lick it! Ugh. Time to whip something up.

The biggest takeaway from the meeting was to get Tom's hands busy. Touching, sorting, and messy play are serious pre-Braille work, but they should also be seriously fun. (He's only four and at that age learning should be FUN.) The business of children is play and they learn a lot from it.

We are also going to play with puzzles more. I want to try to adapt some puzzles we already have to include textures. I have been looking for some simple games but it looks like it's up to me to make some. I'll let you know what I come up with.

Let me know if you try a Braille cereal sorting game. I think it's fun!