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The Egg Carton Copycat

The egg carton is like… a braille cell!

Basic braille Activity

  • Bi-manual
  • Pattern of dots
  • Spatial concepts
  • Tactile discrimination

Level: 1

Number of players: 1

Duration: 10 min

Skills:

  • Discover the spatial organisation of a braille cell

  • Imagine tactile representations

  • Reproduce and create patterns

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

  • four bricks in a bowl: A, B, K, L

  • a 6-egg carton in portrait position, like a braille cell

  • six ‘eggs’ or similar size objects in a bowl

The children play

1

Tell the child to pick a brick, and feel the studs on it.

2

Ask the child to copy that pattern of dots, in the egg box, using the eggs.

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 2 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’…