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Action!

Ready to wave, jump, squat and turn? Action!

Basic braille Activity

  • Body image
  • Gross motor skills
  • Letters

Level: 2

Number of players: 1 and +

Duration: 15 min

Skills:

  • Name, read, write letters

  • Reproduce, create patterns

  • Develop gross motor skills

  • Develop coordination

Can you learn braille characters using your whole body? Yes, you can!
You may be tired, but by the end of the game you will definitely know the letters L, J, S and T!

Goals

To identify braille characters
To develop motor skills and emotional engagement in order to succeed in following simple instructions.

The adult prepares

  • 12 letters in a bag: 3xA, 3xJ, 3xS, 3xT

  • 1 baseplate

The children play

A red drawstring bag spilling colorful lego braille bricks labeled with letters and commands: 'A = Arms up!', 'J = Jump!', 'T = Turn around!', and 'S = Squat!'. Each letter corresponds to a different movement instruction.

1

The letters in the bag represent actions:
A for Arms up
J for Jump
S for Squat
T for Turn around.

2

The child picks a letter from the bag and attaches it to the top left corner of the baseplate.

They read the letter and do the action it represents:
If it’s a J, jump!

3

The child picks another letter, reads it and places it in a line, leaving space between it and the previous brick.

If it’s an A, they do the two actions in order, jump and arms up.
They pick bricks and add actions to the sequence up to 8 bricks / actions.

Through physical play, children develop their body language and spatial awareness.

I’m going to place in the bag a few bricks.
We have letter ‘A’, which means ‘arms up’.
Can you show me ‘arms up’?
‘J’, which means ‘jump’.
Perfect. ‘S’: ‘squat’!
Can you show us?
Yes. And last one, ‘T’,
for ‘turn around’.
-Turn around.
Perfect.
You have to pick a letter.
-A ‘T’.
And place it at the top
left corner of your baseplate.
Each letter is an action,
so can you do
what is written on your base plate?
Okay.
Turn around.
Perfect.
Then we continue.
-Jump!
Turn.
Jump!
-Great.
Ready for the third action?
So now you have to read everything
since the beginning.
And then you will do the actions.
Can you check and read all the letters
first?
Turn, jump,
arms up,
squat, squat,
jump,
squat.
-Okay.
Ready? Action!
Turn, jump.
Up, squat, squat,
Jump.
Squat.
Turn.
Okay. Well done!

Facilitation tips

  • Preliminary exercise: do the actions with the child prior to the activity.

  • Ask the child to repeat the sequence of actions from memory, without reading the bricks.

  • Suggest strategies to remember the sequence: name the actions while doing them, memorise the letter sequence.

  • Choose other letters for different actions: decide with the child what actions they would like to do and together define the letters to put in the bag.