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Twist!

Can you ‘write’ a giant 3-dot character using your whole body?
Of course you can, just twist!

Basic braille Activity

  • Body image
  • Gross motor skills
  • Pattern of dots
  • Socialisation

Level: 2

Number of players: 1 and +

Duration: 20 min

Skills:

  • Discover the spatial organisation of a braille cell

  • Reproduce and create patterns

  • Develop gross motor skills

  • Develop social interactions

Time to bend and stretch! Pick a brick, feel the studs with your fingers, name them. Then find the giant versions of the same studs using your whole body, on a giant cell. The more dots, the more fun!

Goals

To learn the pattern of dots in a braille cell through the use of gross motor skills.

Who wants to start?
Go ahead Loris.
Look for a brick,
in the red bowl to the left on the floor.
Great!
So…
-What is it?
“R”.
And what dots are there?
One, two, three, five.
Come on, one, two, three, five!
Well done!
What did you find?
What is it?
One, three, four, six.
-Four, five.
So one, three,
And four, five!
One, three, four…
That’s six.
-Is that four?
Yes. This is five.
Yes. Well done!
An ‘M’. Oh my!
Well done!
An ‘O’.
Yes, what are the dots?
One…
One, three, five.
One, three, five. Go!
One, three,
five.
Can you, Loris,
do dot one, two, three, four, five?
It’s not that easy.
You can do a cartwheel!
Yes! Well done!

The adult prepares

  • 6 differently textured discs or squares

  • A few different LEGO Braille Bricks in a bag


Arrange the disks on the floor like a braille cell.
(They must be at least 8 inches in diameter.)

The children play

1

The child takes a brick from the bag and feels the studs.

2

Ask the child to reproduce the pattern of studs by touching the corresponding discs on the floor with different parts of their body:
hands, feet, elbows, head!

Facilitation tips

  • Try some preliminary exercises playing with the giant braille cell, placing hands, feet or head on different dots.

  • Ask: What parts of your body can you use to make the pattern?

  • Peer play: one child is in charge of dots 1, 2, 3, the other of dots 4, 5, 6.

Try a variation of this activity:
Place several children on the giant cell and ask them to name the dots and/or which letter they represent.

Come on Fadi, get into the five.
How about now?
‘R’!
No, ‘H’.
-Oh yes, ‘H’!
What if I stand here?
-Go ahead.
‘F’.
-‘F’ for Fadi!
What if I stand here?
-Ah! What’s that?
‘O’ !
‘O’, here it is at last!
This is a hyphen.
and that’s a semicolon.
Yes, and that’s a mark,
if Loris stands here.
What kind of mark?
An exclamation mark!
-Well done.