The Egg Carton Copycat

The egg carton is like… a braille cell!

Take a brick and copy the position of its studs. It’s like magnifying the brick!

Goals

To memorise and reproduce constellations of dots.

The adult prepares

4 bricks in a bowl: A, B, K, L
a 6-egg carton in portrait position, like a braille cell
6 ‘eggs’ or similar size objects in a bowl

The children play

The child picks a brick, and feels the studs on it.

The child copies that pattern of dots, in the egg box, using the eggs.

We will play the activity called
The Egg Carton Copycat.
Pick a brick.
So I want to make this one, here in the box, with the balls.
What balls?
You need to tell me what balls you need.
One. Yes and then?
What do you need?
Three.
Exactly. Five.
Do you have a dot five here?
Do you check?
Yeah.
Do you have a five?
Yes, four.
So you have dot 1, dot 3
And what else do you have here?
Four. Yes.
Do you have a four here?
No. So you have one three and then? Five. Six.
Can you make it?
Feel the dots.
Perfect. Good job.

Facilitation tips

Start with letters that only have dots in the first column i.e. dots 1, 2 3, then choose other letters with more than 3 dots.
Choose two different types of eggs (material, shape): one for the left column (dot 1,2, 3) and one for the right column (dot 4, 5, 6).
Use mini figures instead of eggs and ask the children to tell a story about their journey in the egg box.
Children can play with the constellation of dots even if they don’t know how to count to 6 yet. It’s all about giving a name to a spot: the first spot, top left, is named ‘dot 1’…