Activity: Story Boxes

I'm using this new series of posts to share about some of the activities that we do with our kids! We spend a ton of time researching online for new and creative ideas, and coming up with a few ideas of our own. I hope that this series will be a help to other people in coming up with creative ways to teach their kids!

Activity: Story Boxes

Skills: Increasing vocabulary, attaching meaning to words, promoting excitement about reading

A story box is a way for a child to understand what the words in a book mean. This activity was originally meant for our blind children. We choose a story (such as Goodnight Moon) and then fill a box with all the items in that story (telephone, red balloon, 3 little bear, comb, bowl, socks, etc). You sit with your child and read the book, and as you get to that word, you let them feel the real-life object. It's a way to engage them in the story, as blind children can't see the illustrations, and to teach them the meanings of the words in the book. We found it is actually good for all of our children. Our kids have limited life experiences and none are fluent in English (or any language, for that matter) so it's great for their vocabulary... and it's fun! We have tried this with many of our kids and they all love it! Dinah has trouble focusing her eyes on the book pages, due to her nystagmus, so she liked having larger real-life objects to touch as I read.

We started with Goodnight Moon. I collected the following items: a bowl, a red balloon, 3 little bears, a telephone, socks, a comb, and a star (in the video, I forgot to do the star). In the beginning I used a big ziplock bag, but that was tight so eventually we got bigger storage bins. We are stacking them up and plan on creating a Story Box Library.

I have read this book with Charlotte many times now, and she loves the part when the mouse comes and I have now started running my fingers over her arms and legs and saying "squeak squeak!".  She always giggles. Now, when I say "the old lady whispering hush", Charlotte also says "hush!" Now instead of using a balloon that is already blown up, I use a deflated one and she likes feeling it as I blow it up and then let the air loose.

That same day I tried the activity for the first time with Selah, Nolan, and Louise. All three of them loved it. Nolan cried when it was finished and time to pack it all away! I later ordered larger boxes, as the Ziplock bag was too small to hold everything. On the box, I labelled the story in print and in Braille. I also went out and got the supplies needed for Three Little Pigs, so now our little library is growing with 2 story boxes!

I would like to continue getting more so the kids have a selection. If you are interested in helping with this, let me know! I have selected our next book, and put the objects we need on our Amazon Wishlist. It will be "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" and all the items total to be 1000 rupees which will be under $20. If anyone wants to buy these for us, please let me know! Our story boxes are currently being kept in our sensory room where we also keep all the materials we use for therapy with our blind kids; our Braille and textured books, puzzles, musical instruments, etc.

Resources:
Story Boxes: A Hands-On Literacy Experience
Storybox Ideas

Activity: ASL Photo Scavenger Hunt

I'm using this new series of posts to share about some of the activities that we do with our kids! We spend a ton of time researching online for new and creative ideas, and coming up with a few ideas of our own. I hope that this series will be a help to other people in coming up with creative ways to teach their kids!

Activity: ASL Photo Scavenger Hunt

Skills: Increasing sign vocabulary , following multiple step directions, fine motor skills (cutting, gluing)

Tori and I are tag-teaming Nolan's school right now, with me doing a session in the morning and her doing a session in the afternoon. We realized that he is desperate to learn more sign to be able to communicate, and that he will never be able to read until he has a form of functional communication. We are choosing 5-6 signs per week and just doing activities with him (all play based) that incorporate using these signs. On this particular week, the signs were: Nikki mummy, Tori mummy, dog, iPad, loud, and quiet. We also wanted to review other signs that we previously taught him to see if he remembered them: shoes, bike, book, baby, ball. The following week, when we did Part 2 of the activity (making the book, below) we were focusing on the name signs for the other kids.

Nolan and I sat with the iPad and I signed to him "I am taking a photo of Nolan with the iPad". He knew all these signs (photo, Nolan, iPad) and posed for a photo.

Next I told him that I want to take a photo of a ball with the iPad, and asked him to bring me a ball. He understood all of this and was very excited to race into the other room to search for the ball. He successfully brought me back a ball, and I helped him hold the iPad steady to take a photo with it.

We continued along in this way. I would sign an object or person to him, and he would have to go around the house and bring me back that object or person, and then we would take a photo of it. At the end, we reviewed all our photos and their corresponding signs.

Nolan loved this activity. He was proud when he understood exactly what I was asking him. When I signed to him that the game was finished, he started crying!

He successfully retrieved nearly all of the items/people that I asked him to search for in our scavenger hunt. He didn't remember "bike". He looked at me quizzically, and then pointed to his feet, asking whether I meant "shoes", as the signs are similar. I pointed to the direction of the bike and then he remembered. We introduced 1 new word, "puzzle", and the others were all review.

Nolan is a helper and he loves when we give him jobs, so this activity was right up his alley as he felt important when I asked him to do something and he understood and was able to follow the instruction. He typically doesn't do well with 'testing', so this was a good way to be able to test his knowledge without him knowing that that was what I was doing. We will continue doing this activity and adding new objects as we increase his sign vocabulary.

For fun, the following week I printed out all the photos that he took so we could make a craft with them! He had to cut out all his photos and then glue them to paper and we made an ASL Photo Scavenger Book with all his photos. I wrote the word under the photo, and as we flipped through the book, he did the sign for the object. He did so well and it was a great way to review the signs he knows. I learned that he knows the objects very well (the toys he plays with) but was mixing up some of our name signs. He was happy to show it off the book to Tori when she got home!

Braille Part 2

Well, it happened. I am obsessed with Braille right now. The more I learn about it, the more fascinated I become. And the more excited I am about teaching Charlotte and opening these doors of literacy for her.

The Hadley course we are taking, Braille and Your Blind Baby or Toddler, is amazing. We are learning all about the importance of literacy right now, and how to promote early literacy in your blind children. We are also studying Braille ourselves as children whose parents understand Braille are more likely to be more successful with it.

I'm learning that at this stage, Charlotte doesn't need to understand the Braille letters yet, but I DO want to instill a love of reading in her! And since she can't see the pictures, giving her something to feel, like Braille text, texture, or objects representing characters in the story, will help engage her in reading. It's also important to be animated with my voice to keep her interested, and to involve her in the reading by asking her to turn the page! So right now, the focus is on her language development, her interest in reading, and her learning how to use her hands to explore things, on top of just exposing her to Braille so that when she gets older, she will already have that foundation.

In my last Braille post I listed some of the books that I had purchased in Braille. Lately, we have been taking other books and toys and adapting them to meet Charlotte's needs and make them more interesting to her. I ordered The Black Book of Colours, which is in Braille and all the illustrations are used with raised lines so blind readers can see the pictures with their fingers! I am excited for this to arrive. We have a few numbers books, and I went through with my Braille labeler and added the Braille numbers to each page so Charlotte can touch them as we count. I also took our shapes puzzle and added the Braille word (square, circle, etc) to the shape so we can read it and learn the names of shapes as we do the puzzle!

 

What is most challenging right now, for Charlotte and especially Brianna, is that both are resistant to touching things with their hands. We are trying to incorporate touch into their lives by doing activities which involve touching objects of different textures, and just being sure that whatever we do with them, we use their hands very purposefully to feel everything around them (not just during school time, but throughout the day). Right now Brianna screams and cries if we have her touch anything. Many of the activities we do with Charlotte, we do with Brianna as well, but only for very short periods of time as right now, our only focus for her is helping her overcome her sensory challenges. When she is more comfortable with touching things with her hands, then we will be able to really spend more time with these activities. Charlotte isn't as resistant, but she prefers to pick up an object and toss it across the floor. She very rarely will sit and just feel anything (musical toys, Braille books, sensory toys, etc) unless I sit with her and hand-over-hand encourage her to do it. Right now I am putting Charlotte in the Bumbo chair for a little bit of time every day, when I am occupied with the other kids, and putting toys or books on the tray to give her the opportunity to have those objects close by so she can explore them. Usually she just throws them off the tray, but I hope she will start exploring more often!

Resources:
Eight tips to introduce reading to your young child who is blind
Braille for my baby
Braille Literacy (CNIB)
CELL Practice Guides with Adaptations
Eleanor's In-sight: Early Literacy for the visually impaired

Activity: Proloquo2go Sandwich Making

I'm using this new series of posts to share about some of the activities that we do with our kids! We spend a ton of time researching online for new and creative ideas, and coming up with a few ideas of our own. I hope that this series will be a help to other people in coming up with creative ways to teach their kids!

Activity: Proloquo2go Sandwich Making!

Skills: Increasing English vocabulary, familiarity with Proloquo2go, following directions, reading, cooking skills

One day, Lily and I went to the kitchen and I asked her if she would help me make a sandwich. She was very excited and as we made the sandwich together, I described each step in English and took photos of her doing them.

The next day I took those photos and plugged them into Proloquo2go, putting them in the proper order and labelling each step. Even if you don't have Proloquo2go, you could print them off and use paper copies.

That morning I asked Lily if she wanted to make a sandwich again, and told her that this time, she was going to make it all by herself! I opened Proloquo2go and showed her how to follow each step. We sat together and she went through all the directions step by step, touching the button on P2G so it would read the direction outloud, and then following it with minimal help. The first time we did this, I was surprised that she didn't know what the words "knife" or "bread" were. Today she knew all those words and understood what was meant as she followed the instructions.

When we were finished following the directions and the sandwich was made, I took out some scraps of paper that had all the 9 steps written on them. We went through step by step and I gave her 3 paper options. I would say the step "ex. get the peanut butter" and she would have to look at the 3 options and select the correct one. Sometimes she would try to go fast and would just point to one without really thinking, but whenever I made her sound the words out and fold her hands together while she looked and thought about it, she would get it correct.

She was so proud of herself to do be able to complete this all on her own! She was especially excited when I helped her cut the sandwich into 4 parts. She, Tori, and 2 of our ayahs Parvathi and Prameela all ate a piece, and she beamed with pride when they told her how good it was!

Braille

Aside from Charlotte and Brianna, all of our blind children have profound cognitive delays. Most of them are also on the autism spectrum. When Charlotte came to us, we knew that she had lived the first 19 months of her life in an orphanage where she was deprived of affection and stimulation, and we know very well what effect that can have on a child's brain. We had no idea whether Charlotte would talk, one day go to school, or be able to do things like read and do puzzles. We still do not know these answers, but the longer that Charlotte is with us the more we believe that as she gets older, she will be a typically developing blind child. Already she has surpassed Jasmine, Cedar, Chloe, and Promise in terms of her receptive language. This is new for us, and has led me to spend a lot of time researching educating blind children. Although Charlotte is only a year old (almost 2), I want to give her the tools she needs to help her mind grow, and to prepare her to navigate life as a blind child and adult. This article, Beginning Braille Skills, was really eye opening to me. The Hadley School For The Blind also offers a lot of online courses for professionals and family members of blind children/adults, including a free intro to Braille course. Their Braille and Your Baby or Toddler course is $99, but looks amazing. Tori and I signed up and start soon.

I learned that just as a sighted baby and toddler sees print everywhere, a blind baby and toddler needs to "see" (with their fingers) Braille. Sighted children understand what letters are long before they learn to read. They see letters in books, on cereal boxes, on signs. Charlotte is only a baby and nowhere near ready to learn to read, but we need to expose her to Braille in the same way that sighted babies are exposed to letters. Because she is blind though, this needs to be more intentional. With our other blind children, we have never used Braille because right now they are not at the stage where that seems like something appropriate to be working on. Maybe one day this will be something we do with them, but for now we are working on other goals, and so Braille is completely new to our house!

I purchased a Braille labeler online through the Braille Bookstore for $24.95. You do not need to know Braille to use it. You simply type a word letter by letter in, and it prints it in Braille onto labeling tape which can then be used to label anything in your home. The woman who recommended this product to me suggested buying extra clear labeling tape, so I did that as well.

I found, when I asked online on the 2 support groups I am a part of for parents of blind children, that there is a lot of different thoughts for how to label and how to expose your child to Braille. Some people said to label everything in the house. Others said just do those things that are labeled in print (like, for example, buttons on a microwave, dishwasher, etc), others said just to start with the first letter rather than doing the whole word. I ended up labeling some of her favourite things and some things that she touches frequently throughout the day. As she is near it or as we use the object, I run her fingers over the Braille and say the word. We labeled things like; water (her bottle), all the rooms in our house at the door frames, her toy box, and the beds and table.

I also ordered our first Braille books! I am a huge Robert Munsch fan, so I ordered Murmel Murmel Murmel off the Braille bookstore. Off Seedlings Braille Books For Children I ordered Love Bug, Clifford's Bedtime, Good Night I Love You, and That's Not My Duck. The book from the Braille Bookstore was just the papers with the text and Braille binded together. The Seedlings company takes the actual books (with pictures, as you get in a bookstore) and pasted the Braille to each page, so I liked those best as my other kids can read them and they are board books so the pages are thicker for Charlotte to turn. I was pleased to see all of our favourite books and authors available in Braille! There is contracted Braille which uses contractions/abbreviations, and uncontracted Braille, which is the standard Braille alphabet letter by letter. I purchased all uncontracted Braille books (grade 1) as that is usually how kids learn. In addition, an awesome mom named Ann, who has a daughter with anophthalmia (same as Charlotte, Brianna, Cedar, and Chloe) made us an ABC Braille book to introduce Charlotte to the alphabet and to read through as we sing the ABC song! The first day I introduced the Braille books to Charlotte, she was super grumpy and I was sure it wouldn't go well. I did a few other activities that she cried and fought me through. Then I pulled out the Clifford Braille book and ran her finger over the Braille as I read. All the sudden the crying stopped and she sat, still with her head turned slightly to the side in concentration, until we finished the full book. She was so interested in feeling the Braille!

Aside from just exposing her to Braille, I learned a lot about pre-Braille activities that I can do with Charlotte (and will also do with my other blind children). Pre-Braille skills are the skills that will allow young children to one day learn to read in Braille, so things like discriminating textures, building hand strength, and fine motor skills to explore with their hands. An example is when we read, I have her practice turning the page and move her hands so she learns that we read from left to right. We also do an activity where we hide different objects inside Playdough so she can practice exploring with her hands and discriminating different textures. Recently I put beads inside Playdough and helped her squish the Playdough and find the beads inside, while talking about the different textures to teach her words like "squishy".

Another activity we have tries is puffy paint colouring: This is where you take a colouring page from a colouring book and cover all the lines of the image with puffy paint, so that it sticks up from the page and a blind child can feel it. Then, they can colour the object with crayons being able to feel where to colour. Rather than just scribbling on a paper and not being able to see it, this is more interesting and teaches the child to use their hands to feel where to colour, and also to discriminate the 2 textures (smooth paper and raised paint). Tori tried it with Brianna and Chloe. Chloe tolerated it well for a bit. Brianna wasn't ready for this yet, but we are going to try to keep pushing her and try to expose her to new things using her hands. She screamed and fought it, as she does everything right now that involves using her hands to explore.  Brianna is so new and we are still getting to know her. We are trying to expose her to the same activities that we do with Charlotte, and as she gets more comfortable and we get to know her better, we will be able to better understand where she is at and what goals are appropriate. I was surprised that Charlotte loved the activity. . She sat calmly and seemed to be soothed by the back and forth colouring motion. Because of the paint, our crayon would hit the edge and we would know to start going in the other direction. I was pleased!

 

I found this awesome website, Ellie's Eyes, written by the parents of a little girl named Ellie who is blind. They shared the video "Ellie with her new touch and noisy book 15 months" and I loved it so much that I searched for that book and found it on Amazon India! It is called This Is My Monster. As you can see in the video, Ellie is able to listen to her Mom reading and knows when to press the button so she is involved in the story telling. She also feels the textures and turns the pages. Those are great pre-Braille skills and things that we are working on with Charlotte! Many years later the same family shared the video "Ellie using Pre Braille skills books". With this book, the child has to trace their finger from one object over several different paths to find something. For example, help the butterfly find his flower. I did some searching online and found that these are made through Tactile Graphics, a company out of South Africa. These are a bit advanced for Charlotte, but I bought one anyways and we will start exposing her to it. They are a bit pricy but are beautiful and handmade and the website has a lot of selection. I ordered the same book that Ellie is using in the video, Paths, but the website offers lots of other books that are great for developing pre Braille skills. It just arrived in the mail and I love it so much. It is beautiful! I am going to try it with Charlotte tomorrow.

So that is a little bit about our new journey in learning Braille! We are pretty excited to start learning more about it and introducing it to Charlotte and Brianna. We will keep you updated!