Mo-braillity and Beyond Including movement into your world of Braille instruction February 1, 2019 Cecelia Quintana, COMS, CTSVI

The Benefits of Movement Children who are active exhibit: better focus, faster cognitive processing, more successful memory retention by Increasing blood and oxygen flow to the brain Alerting the brain that something important is about to happen

Labeling the world Identifying/matching Braille in the natural environment Beginning readers can find specific letters on signs, more advanced can read whole signs Identifying/matching Braille that has been added to the environment For beginning readers, put labels on common objects, have the student match their copy of the label and put it on the item (e.g., pen, book, door, desk, refrigerator, etc. More advanced readers can just go find the items and place their labels.

Interviews Great for early graphing Opportunities for improving social skills Have the student make their own graphs and decide what should be included, when possible Options for markers: anything self- adhesive

Sample Interview sheet – Boy or Girl? boy or girl 333333333333333333333333333333333333333 boy girl

Sample Interview – Shoe Types ,%oes (Shoes) 333333333333333333333333333333333333333 ,t5nis %oes (Tennis shoes) ,s&als (Sandals) ,hi< heels (High heels) ,flats (Flats) ,dress %oes (Dress shoes)

Follow the trail Braille up some jokes and answers and mark accordingly, if desired. Using crunched up packing tape, make a tactile trail between the joke and the answer card.

Follow the Trail You can be creative!

Positional cards game Useful for learning short-form words (above, below, beside, etc.) Emboss multiple copies of each word that will be learned, cut apart and indicate top corner Have the student place the cards where they belong in relation to you, to them, to a phone that is playing music, or ???

Word collection activities It can be fun to collect words from the environment and then manipulate them Drop the pen – As you casually walk through the environment, or stand near an area where people are talking, someone in the group drops a pen or pencil. The last word that was heard when the pen dropped is collected. Drop the penny – Open any book to any page and drop a penny. The word under the penny is collected. Stop the book – Use an audio book and have the student stop the book when they hear an unknown or interesting word. That word is collected

Word collection activities What to do with collected words? Produce in uncontracted Braille Produce in contracted Braille Anagrams using some or all of the letters Practice moving around the contractions found in the word to beginning, middle and end (For example, collected word “federal”, isolate “ed” contraction, new words: educate, predict, fainted) Use them all in an outrageous story

Beyond Alphabet create-a-word chart Braille Battleship Phobia corner Mania Wall And let’s not forget

“Beyond” activity – chart reading Alphabet Make-a-word Chart Plot the letters on the chart to make a word

“Beyond” activity – chart reading Braille Battleship Each player needs: 2 copies of the Braille Battleship grid A Braillewriter that can accommodate 11 X 11.5 paper 2 different styles of pushpins (storing them on a foam cup works well) Some type of backing that will keep the pushpins from protruding out the back of the grid (a double layer of cardboard is fine)

Braille Battleship (Cont’d) Play progresses as in the typical game, with the students plotting their ship and their opponent’s guesses on one grid using pushpins, and marking their guesses on the other grid that is in the Braillewriter. It is helpful to use differently shaped pushpins to distinguish between hits and misses. =

Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia Phobia corner Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia

Mania Wall Dromomania

And let’s not forget… Science experiments – reading fractions and measuring skills Mad Libs - http://www.madtakes.com/ Set up a fun facts bulletin board in your classroom Ideas shared by attendees My contact information: cquintana@nmsbvi.k12.nm.us

Thank you!! NMSBVI - New Mexico School for the Blind and Visually Impaired CFB - New Mexico Commission for the Blind All my students