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The Bull Pen

Where’s the bull? That’s up to you! Make a bull, then build his pen.

Basic braille Activity

  • Imagination
  • Numbers
  • Spatial concepts

Level: 3

Number of players: 2

Duration: 15 min

Skills:

  • Name, read and write numbers

  • Understand that numbers express quantities

  • Design with bricks

  • Recognise and use geometry concepts

This is a two-step, two-player activity that combines imagination (imagining a bull) and numbers and geometry skills (building a fence).

Goals

To understand the concept of perimeter.
To understand how a number corresponds to a quantity.

The adult prepares

  • 2 baseplates

  • all the bricks

  • 1 bowl


Remove all the number-bricks and place them in the bowl.

Keep the other bricks in the box.

The children play

1

Tell the players to take 10 random bricks each from the box and to put them in the middle of the baseplate.

Give them 1 minute to build a bull with the10 bricks.

2

Ask player 1 to pick a number-brick from the bowl and read it.

Tell them to take the same number of bricks from the box and begin to build a fence around the perimeter of the baseplate.

3

Player 2 takes their turn.
The activity is over when a player completes the fence.

To complete it, the player needs to pick the exact number of missing bricks. If the number is too big, the player skips a turn.

Olivia plays (and wins!) Bull Pen with her sighted friend Ronnie.

And now, you can start the bull.
Ronnie, I’m starting on the legs.
That’s a good idea.
Yeah and then I can get to the top.
So we are now ready to start.
I have nine,
so I have to get nine bricks.
Six, seven, eight, nine.
Okay I’ve got nine.
And now I can start building my fence.
Alright, now it’s your turn.
Two.
Done, your go.
I got six.
I don’t know how many this is.
-Can I see?
Yeah.
That is. Oh!
Oh my God.
You got a zero.
-Oh my goodness!
Your go.
Okay. That was funny!
I’ve got eight.
My go.
-Don’t get a zero again…
I did!
Oh, my god!
I got a three…
-Two.
Better than nothing I guess.
Yeah, I got…
Four.
-Four.
Oh, no.
I’ve got an extra one.
So you cannot place the full brick.
So you have to remove the three bricks that you placed.
It has to be the exact number that can fit.
Hopefully you don’t get a zero.
-Five.
Three!
It was the right number.
I’m done.

Facilitation tips

  • Suggest another story or another animal…

  • Suggest different types of construction: a 2-storey wall, a 5 by 4 rectangle, a square.

  • Place only small numbers in the bowl.