

Basic braille
Where is Lily?
Lily is playing on the beach, but Alfie, her dog, has lost her!
Teaching braille: Lesson Plan 3
For all children, learning symmetry requires significant cognitive and spatial skills. However, blind or visually impaired children also need to develop strong technical skills.
Here are some tips to prepare children for the preliminary manipulations required for symmetry exercises and a lesson plan to guide them through these activities—all while keeping it fun!
The child needs to be able to identify reference points on the baseplate, follow a line, and understand the concept of a grid. Without sight, these concepts can be particularly challenging.
Many pre-braille and basic-braille activities help develop these prerequisites:
Building a geometric shape: Build a rectangular/square tower
Reproducing a shape: Twin Sculpture
Finding objects on the baseplate: Where is Lily?
Following a virtual line: Make the river flow
Exploring distinct zones and understanding grids: Tic Tac Toe
We recommend using LEGO Braille Bricks without focusing on the studs.
Later, for advanced students, symmetry exercises can incorporate the positioning of the studs, but this is challenging.
An axis of symmetry must be created on the baseplate. You can start with a rubber band or a rope of play dough, then progress to a line of LEGO bricks as students become more confident.
The adult places a single brick on the baseplate, and the child places the symmetrical brick.
Continue with multiple bricks.
Tip: Avoid placing bricks too far from the axis of symmetry, as counting the studs separating the axis from the brick can be difficult and may cause the child to lose track of the lines.
The adult creates a simple geometric shape (square, rectangle) on one side, and the child reproduces its symmetrical counterpart.
The adult draws two shapes on opposite sides of the baseplate, and the child determines whether they are symmetrical.
The adult draws half of a figure, and the child completes the symmetrical half, discovering what the full figure represents.
More difficult: the adult creates a shape on a baseplate without axis, and the child places the axis or axes of symmetry using a drinking straw for example.
Learn how to write your name in braille
A lesson plan is useful when working on a specific skill. Let’s see an example: teaching a student writing his first name.
How to set up a column operation
A visually impaired child can learn to do columnar operations in the same way as their sighted peers.
How to teach braille without being a specialist ?
One piece of advice? Don’t be afraid!